The Freed Spirit 



or 



QL1MP5E5 PEYOND THE BORDER 



A COLLECTION OF NEW AND AUTHENTIC OCCULT TALES 

FROM THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 

AND RELIABLE PRIVATE SOURCES 



MARY KYLE DALLAS 

Author of "The Devil's Anvil," "The Grinder Papers," "The Nine Iron Bars," etc 



COA 



v MAR SO 1 894 . 



NEW YORK N ^W£- 

Charles B. Reed, Publisher^--— "T 

164, 166 & 168 FULTON ST f J * 

1894 






^ 



Copyright, 1894, by 
AUGUSTA W. FLETCHER, M. D, 

All Rights Reserved, 



PREFACE. 

Most writers begin a book of this sort by informing their readers 
that they are not spiritualists, or else, more rarely, that they are, 
and why. 

Therefore, it appears that it is proper to classify one's self, and I 
should like to do it if I could ; but the fact is I do not yet quite know 
what I believe, and I claim the right to change my opinions as often 
as I please. 

What I believed five years ago, I do not believe to-day, and I dare 
say that if I am on earth five years from now, I shall have found 
reason to believe many other things which I now take cum 
gra?io salts. 

Therefore, I am, dear reader, neither spiritualist nor skeptic. 
Regard me, if you please, as a story-teller, but one who is now, as 
she solemnly believes, telling you only true stories. 

What I have experienced myself, I have not embellished in the 
least, and when I tell you what others have told me, it is because I 
positively believe that they told the truth. 

At the end of the volume I have a few pages of mystery stories, 
which I simply introduce as curiosities, but when I say Mrs. A or 
Mr. B told me this, you may be sure that I thought those ladies 
and gentlemen spoke the truth as I listened to them. 

I should be glad to use their names, but in most cases that has 
been forbidden, and I have been obliged to have recourse to the 
alphabet. You will, therefore, have to take my word for it that 
the heroes and heroines really live and move and had the experi- 
ences which are here set down. 



IV PREFACE. 

Psychical research has thoroughly sifted too many family ghost 
stories, and examined the proofs of too many prophetic dreams, to 
allow us to believe that they are all hallucinations. 

If we accord any value to human testimony, we must believe — as I 
aver, without a blush, that I do — that at the solemn hour of death, 
the dying are, at times, permitted to visit those whom they love best ; 
that " wonder-opened eyes have seen " the semblance of the forms 
of the departing, when their faint and exhausted bodies were lying 
motionless upon their pillows, when those about them thought them 
dead. 

These tales are proven by the testimony of worthy people in their 
right minds, and can scarcely be doubted. Within an hour of 
the apparent death, men and women have seemingly stood before 
others at a distance. Usually they appear to wear the costume that 
they do wear at the time. Those who see them are generally alone 
and in a composed state of mind, oftenest reclining. 

Moreover, there are people living who will assure you that they 
have actually left their bodies and found themselves in some place at 
a great distance, observing the events that there transpired, and have 
been able to describe everything accurately, and that people on the 
spot have afterward corroborated their statements. 

These were persons upon whom the trance fell without warning, 
who were not seeking such a condition, but to whom it came as 
sleep does, or a swoon, without the intervention of another human 
being. These clairvoyants are always able to describe what they 
have observed. Their memory of words and deeds, of form and 
coloring, is vivid. What they -do not know, is how they came or 
went. They found themselves at a distant place, they find them- 
selves again in the accustomed one without knowing how — that is. 
all. It seems to them that they must have taken their bodies with 
them. But those who watch them, tell them that they have remained 
in the chair or upon the couch all the while, silent, motionless, 
apparently unconscious, often with the eyes wide open. 

Certainly, if we are but once sure that the spirit can thus leave 
the living body, taking with it all that makes up the identity, we- 



PREFACE. V 

need never succumb to the despair which those feel who believe that 
" When v?e die, why, there's an end on't." 

A queer sort of false pride makes many men pretend that they 
like that idea. But give them a little hope that it is a false one, and 
they rejoice more than those who have always been supported by 
faith. 

However, we are all aware that such hopes are like vines — they 
need something to cling to, and not all need the same thing. The 
morning-glory asks only a little silken thread on which to climb 
heavenward, but you must give the ivy a rough stone wail. 

For many a doubter, the proof that a living man can leave the body, 
and be a man for all that, would be a good, strong cord by which 
he could reach the heights where there are prospects of which 
those who linger in the valley do not know, and where he once more 
sees the sun, which seemed to him, down there below, to have set 
long ago. 

I know of several such cases of clairvoyance, and they are proofs 
to me. Naturally, they cannot be as convincing to you, but I assure 
you that I will not, for the sake of making the stories better, add any- 
thing to them. So far you can trust me. And now, without further 
preface, I will tell you the most important clairvoyant story that I 
am able to relate, in full faith that it is perfectly true — that of 
Mr. Apell, a Scotch gentleman, residing, at the time, in the United 
States. 



THE TREED SPIRIT 



CLIMF5E5 Beyond the Border 



INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Chapter i. — Mr. Apell's Vision. - - i 

Mrs. G's Story, - 8 

Miss Annie Starbird's Story, - - 9 

Told by Mr. John Garnis, - - 11 

Chapter 2. — The Appearance of Departed Spirits, - 13 

My Grandmother's Ghost Story, - - 16 

My Own Story.. - - 26 

Chapter 3. — Odd Happenings, 30 

My One Song, - - - 35 

A Real " Grandfather's Clock," 36 

What Was It ? - - - - 37 

A Warning of Calamity, - - - 38 

Out of the Body, - - - 39 

Chapter 4. — Dopple Gangers, - 42 
An Apparition in Red, Blue and Yellow, - 44 

Chapter 5. — Somnambulism, - 47 

Mr. Alpheus Bixby, - - - - 48 

Mrs. Brick's Dinner, - 48 

Miss Primula's Acrobatic Performance, - 50 

Above the Whirlpool at Midnight, - 52 



X 



INDEXo 



Chapter 6. — Dreams, - 

My Sister's Dream, - 

My Mother's Dream, - 

A Neighbor's Dream, 

The Persian Rug, - 

A Dream of the Fourteenth Century. The 
Finding of the Last Cantos of Dante's 
Divina Comedia, - 



PAGE. 

54 
56 

59 
60 
61 



62 



Chapter 7.— Ghost Stories, 

Mr. Blomgren's Call, - 

A Mississippi Pilot's Story, 

Dr. F's Story, 

What a Musician Saw, 

The Ghost in the Back Parlor, 

A Haunted Man, 



65 
66 

67 

7i 

72 

74 
77 



Chapter 8. — A Covington Apparition, 
A Reproachful Ghost, 
A Sorrowful Ghost, - 
. Poor Hannah Penny, 
The Twins, - 
A Pretty Story of Helen Hunt Jackson, 



84 

85 
89 

95 
97 
98 



Chapter 9 — Nurse Kirkpatrick's Stories, - 

How a Spirit Sat for Its Photograph, 

The Story of a Watch, 

A Dream, -•■■-.- 

Sister Zelia, 

A Virginia Witch Story, - 



100 
105 
109 
112 
113 
ii5 



INDEX. 



XI 



Chapter io. — Three Celebrated Mediums : 
Miss Edmonds, 
Charles Foster, 
Mrs. Marearet Fox Kane, 



125 
127 
J 36 



Chapter i i. — About Babies, 

A Baby Ghost-Seer, 

Chapter 12. — Planchette, 
Chapter 13, — Colonel Deyer's Well, 

Chapter 14.— The Story of Mrs. V, 
Extract From a Letter, 



133 
H3 

144 

150 

163 
168 



Chapter 15.— The Anxious Mother, 

Two Pictures of Heaven, 

The Case of Mrs. Roger Black, 



171 

180 
183 



Chapter 16. — Mediums of Uncivilized Nations:. 
The Kaffirs, - 
The Ashantees, 
The Dahomians, 
The Australians, - 
The Maoris, - 
The Fijians, 
The Abyssinians, 
Spiritual Belief of the Esquimaux, 



189 
190 

193 
194 

J 95 
197 



Chapter 17. — Testimony From All Quarters, 



20 r 



xii INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Chapter 18. — The Belief of Agassizin the Eternal Continu- 
ance of Individual Personality, - -211 
Immanuel Kant on the Hope of Immortality, - 211 
Lord Byron on the White Lady of Colalto, 212 
Mozart's Belief in Omens, - - -213 
Mr. Frith's Dream of Dickens, - - 213 
Victor Hugo, - - - - 213 
Abercrombie's Opinion, - - - 214 
A Beautiful Hope of the Theosophist, - 216 
Herbert Spencer, - - - - 217 
The Fathers of the Church, - - 217 
Extracts from Hawthorne's Note-Books, - 218 

Chapter 19. — The Haunted Hearth, - 220 

Sleeping-car Dreams, - 224 

Chapter 20. — Mystery Stories, ... - 228 

The Son Restored to His Mother, - 229 

St. Luke, Chapter VII, - - =231 



CHAPTER i. 

MR. APELL'S VISION. 

I believe that " Second-sight " was claimed by certain 
members of Mr. Apell's family, and that he himself had 
other experiences of the same sort. Be that as it may, 
on a certain day, many years ago, Mr. Apell was sitting 
with his wife in the room they usually occupied in the 
evening, talking of indifferent subjects, when he sud- 
denly became silent. 

Looking at him in some surprise, his wife saw that he 
was sitting in his arm-chair, on one side of the grate 
fire, in a rigid position, with his eyes wide open and 
fixed, as though they saw nothing. She had seen him 
in this state before, and had learned that it was best not 
to disturb him ; that if no effort were made to arouse 
him, he would finally come to himself and suffer no 
more than a somnambulist does under the same circum- 
stances. Therefore she wisely remained silent and 
went on with her sewing, as though nothing strange had 
occurred. 

I do not remember how long Mr. Apell remained in 
that strange condition into which he had fallen, but it 
was a very long while for such a state to continue. 
When, at last, he began to move and once more to be 
conscious of his surroundings, he seemed very unhappy, 
both distressed and shocked ; and, after rising and pac- 



2 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

ing the room for awhile, told his wife that he had just 
seen his father die, and was assured that he should soon 
receive news which would prove that he was not deceived 
by his imagination. 

Mrs. Apell, who placed faith in the power of Second- 
sight, was naturally much affected by what her husband 
told her, but waited until he felt able to tell the particu- 
lars of his vision, which he shortly did. 

He remembered saying something to his wife and 
hearing her reply die away in the distance, as it were, 
but he could not catch it or comprehend it. There was 
temporary oblivion, and then he found himself, in some 
strange way, at a political meeting in a place which I 
have forgotten, and in which his father was at the time 
residing. A great number of people had gathered, a 
platform had been built and he noticed certain favorite 
orators gathered upon it and heard them speak. He 
seemed, in fact, to be attending the meeting as he would 
in the ordinary way if he had been present in the body ; 
recognized old friends, joined in the applause which 
followed the speeches, and had no odd sensations 
whatever ; only no one spoke to him. Suddenly, he saw 
his father and a brother arrive upon the scene. They 
had evidently been belated, and the fact that his father 
was to speak from the platform was mentioned by 
those in the throng. His name was called and he as- 
cended the steps, followed by his son. There was the 
usual hand-shaking and greeting ; some one announced 
him, and he stepped forward. He opened his lips, ap- 
peared confused, uttered a few incoherent words and 
suddenly put his hand to his heart and fell backward — 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 3 

Mr. Apell saw that it was into his brother's arms. A 
doctor was called for ; one came from the audience. The 
invisible spectator saw all that was done in the effort to 
restore consciousness. Then he saw them bring his 
father down the steps. He heard the doctor declare that 
he was dead. He witnessed his brother's grief. Then 
he knew that they consulted as to the best way of con- 
veying the body to its home, which was at some dis- 
tance. The place was a rural one, not provided with all 
conveniences. There seemed to be no carriage to be had. 
Some amongst the number procured some plain pine 
boards, of which they hastily made a rude coffin. He 
heard all their remarks and the sounds of the tools they 
used. He saw them place his father's body in this box, 
and he saw them lift it into a wagon which was driven up. 
" Brother Bob," he said, "was like one stunned. I 
never saw a man so dazed in my life. I wanted to 
rouse him, and I put my arm about him. He did not 
seem to feel me. ' Bob, my boy,' said I, 'this is a sad 
hour. We have lost a good father, and it will break 
mother's heart. I cannot fancy her living long without 
him.' But I could see that he neither heard nor felt 
me, that he did not know that I was there. I could not 
understand it ; it seemed to me that I was exactly as I 
always was. I could look down and see my own figure 
and feel the cloth of the coat I wore, and when I put 
my hands together they felt as they always do. In a 
kind of horror, I turned and spoke to two or three 
others. They were all as deaf and blind to me as Bob 
had been. I saw Andrew Muir, whom I went to school 
with. I put out my hand and touched his. He began 



4 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

to rub his fingers, and whispered to some one that his 
hand tingled as if he had taken hold of an electric 
battery. After that I touched nobody, but I spoke to 
the doctor. ' Doctor/ said I, i has my father been com- 
plaining? Was there any reason to expect this?* It 
was plain that he did not hear me either. I stood 
straight before him and he took no notice of me. It 
was a very terrible thing to bear ; but I felt that I must 
stay and go with them to my mother, and try if I could 
comfort her a little, and I thought that I would ride in 
the wagon. I went toward it, and my foot was on the 
wheel, and that is the last that I remember." Then, he 
said, all vanished and he saw his own home, his wife 
sitting opposite him, all as it had been when that 
strange condition came upon him. 

This and more he told, and waited for the news that 
he was sure would come. 

It arrived in due time. All had happened exactly as 
in his dream. The people he had seen were there, each 
had played his part precisely as in the vision. The 
coffin had been made by the people he had seen make 
it, and of the wood he had noticed was used. 

Mr. Apell had actually been on the spot — or, at least, 
that which was the man, that which thought and suf- 
fered, and commented and remembered. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Apell's person, his legs, arms, ears 
and eyes, his flesh and blood, clad in its raiment of 
cloth and linen, sat in his chair at home. He was not 
dead — neither did he wear the aspect of death. 

What he seemed to be, was asleep with his eyes open, 
only that he was more rigid than most sleeping folk. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 5 

Generally, in sleep, the head lolls, the mouth falls open, 
the limbs relax — yet not always. I have myself seen 
people sit bolt-upright and motionless, during a long 
nap. 

Assuredly, if you do not disbelieve this tale, you will 
see that there is a possibility of the spirit — I know not 
what else to call it — leaving the body for a space, as 
one might leave one's house, and of returning to it 
afterward. 

It may be that this is a matter quite disconnected 
with the existence of a spirit after death, that it does 
not prove immortality, yet I think that there is more to 
hang a hope upon in such an experience as this, than in 
seeing the likeness of one departed, with one's waking 
eyes. 

Nature has made, in making the eye, a beautiful and 
wonderful thing, but it is liable to accident. It may 
repeat what it has once seen, it may distort what it 
looks upon, or multiply it. 

The drunken man sees two lamp-posts, and between 
them falls to the ground, but in such a case as that just 
narrated, the eyes and ears were left behind, and yet 
there was vision, and words were heard. The brain 
was under Mr. Apell's hair, yet he thought, he felt, he 
drew inductions, above all, he had strong emotions. 
How did that happen? 

What would have been the result, if, during that 
period of trance, some one had murdered the Mr. 
Apell who sat in his chair at home — cut off his head, 
stabbed him to the heart, made his body untenantable ? 
Would he also have murdered the man who was at the 



6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

political meeting, and who, later, was grieving over his 
father's death ? Was this identity only part of the fig- 
ure sitting by the fireside ? I do not think so. 

Of his departure or return Mr. Apell knew nothing ; 
those moments were mere blanks. He was here — he 
was there ; and there was no sense of time occupied in 
the change of place. 

If he did not go and come, what went and came ? I 
do not pretend to know. Call it a dream if you please, 
and then tell me what power painted that scene, those 
faces, moved them to do all that they did, repeated 
what they said with the accuracy of an audiphone ? It 
seems to me, being so exact a record of events trans- 
piring at the moment, so many miles away, to be as 
wonderful, if it were a dream, as in any other class of 
phenomena. But dreams generally have a hole in 
them somewhere. Even when "veridical," they are 
usually figurative and emblematic in a degree, or they 
have absurd points, only known to be so when the 
dreamer wakens. 

Mr. Apell's description of the scene at his father's 
death was that of an eye-witness. Very few reporters 
stick as close to facts ; very few persons who appear 
upon the witness-stand are as accurate. Well-meaning 
people will say that a man exclaimed " My goodness," 
when he cried out " Good Heavens "; that he struck 
another with a cane, when he really used an umbrella ; 
or that he threw a brick, when he really threw a stone. 

Mr. Apell, according to the account which I have 
always relied upon as truthful in every particular, made 
not one mistake of this sort. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 7 

And now one asks one's self : which was the real Mr. 
Apell all this while ? His body, arrayed in its accus- 
tomed manner, was at his own fireside. His wife saw 
it ; it was her husband, and it was not her husband. 
That which we value in our friends had left it ; it had no 
consciousness, no interest in her. Whatever had hap- 
pened to her, he would have taken no heed of it. 

The presence of his form was of no value ; it was 
simply a semblance of him as a statue might have been, 
no more. 

His spirit was far away, amidst the scenes he after- 
ward described. He witnessed his father's death with 
the same distress that he would have felt had he had 
his body with him, sympathized with his brother 
and with those of his kindred whom the sad news 
would shock, and bethought him of his wife as at a dis- 
tance, and of her feelings when she should be told of 
what had happened. 

Was not that the man whom his wife loved — who 
loved her? If by some accident the body in the chair 
had been made untenantable, would that have done 
away with the identity ? 

Unless that story is false, can you say that it does 
not prove that the body is nothing but a coat, which 
we wear and cast away when we have done with it ? 
That it is true, and that hundreds like it are also 
true, it would be .actual folly to doubt because you 
may never have been clairvoyant, or had an oppor- 
tunity of observing a case of the sort. You do not 
deny that the Atlantic cable is in existence, because 
you have never sent a message across it. 



8 THIS STORY IS ANOTHER OF THE SAME ORDER. 

As I have not asked permission of the lady I shall 
now speak of to use her name, I will only call her 
Mrs. G. 

She was a very young woman at the time, and was 
also very, very ill. She lay in her bed in the second 
floor of a house in Greenpoint, L. I., and had proved by 
various remarks that she had a strange power of seeing 
things not within the range of her vision — a power she 
did not possess at other times. 

About eighteen years have gone by since that day 
when she suddenly opened her eyes and told those 
about her that she had just seen a young man they all 
knew (a neighbor who was on the police force) mur- 
dered. 

I think that a heavy stone was thrown at him, but 
certainly she saw him stagger against a wall and fall, 
dying. 

The young man's name was Phelps — my impression is 
that the whole name was William Phelps — but he lived 
with his family, who were very fond of him and very 
much attached to each other, and were very near neigh- 
bors of the sick lady. 

At this time they were occupied in their usual way, 
and had evidently heard no ill news, and no one at- 
tached any importance to the dream ; but, a few hours 
later, one came bringing the bad tidings. The young 
policeman had been engaged in assisting to quell a riot, 
and one of the rioters had killed him. Exactly as my 
friend had seen him in her dream, he had staggered 
against a wall. Just as she had described, and, certainly, 
in the same hour that she had seen him die, he had really 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 9 

done so. During this lady's illness, I was told, she could 
see persons who rang the door bell and tell who de- 
sired admittance, or, if anything were lost, could direct 
others where to find it. 

I saw none of this, but have every reason to believe 
that the facts were as stated. 

MISS ANNIE STARBIRD'S STORY 

Seems naturally to follow this one. Again the seer 
gained the power of clairvoyance in illness, and lost it 
during health. 

She was, at the time, a young lady of twenty, and her 
dwelling place was a country house in the State of 
Maine. Her name was Annie Starbird. 

Having taken too long a walk, a peculiar illness over- 
took her. She was quite well so long as she lay 
upon her back ; but if she tried to sit up, she fainted 
away. In this illness her mother cared for her, and 
it soon became a common thing for the daughter to 
foretell events, ordinary things of no special import, but 
always " coming true," and thus taking upon themselves 
an interest they would not otherwise have possessed. 

One, which she told me, I remember in detail. 

Her aunt and cousins were coming to dine and spend 
the day. They would come in their own vehicle, and were 
expected to arrive so that the meal could be partaken 
of between noon and one o'clock. During the morn- 
ing, Annie called her mother and said : 

" If you want dinner to be hot when auntie comes, 
mother, you will have to put it off until three o'clock. 



IO THE FREED SPIRIT. 

I have just seen auntie and cousins. They started so 
as to be here in good time, but (at such and such a 
place — mentioning it by name) the wagon broke 
down. It is a serious accident, though no one is hurt. 
One of them " — mentioning the person by name — " was 
obliged to go a long way to get some one to do repairs. 
Then the work itself will take a long while. They know 
they cannot get here before three o'clock and are very 
sorry. Every one is doing all that can be done, but 
there is no such thing as hastening matters," and she 
described the injury to the wagon and what the smith 
was doing. 

Mrs. Starbird had such faith in the clear-seeing of 
this invalid daughter, that she took her advice. Dinner 
was postponed until the hour mentioned, or even a 
little later, and the guests enjoyed it in due season. It 
was just ready when they arrived. 

The accident had happened exactly as Annie had de- 
scribed it. And the long walk, the discussion, the slow 
operations of the smith, and the particular portion of 
the wagon injured, were all as they were seen by Annie 
and described to her mother. With her, the things 
seemed to be seen in a dream. 

Afterward, on her recovery, the lady grew healthy 
and stout, and saw only as others do. She was emi- 
nently practical, it appeared to me, and one of the last 
people of whom one would expect anything abnormal. 
Poor Annie ! it is now many years since 

" Death hath taught her more 
Than this melancholy world doth know— ' 
Things greater than all lore. 1 ' 

I fancy that she was glad to find herself a free spirit. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. II 

There are some in New York who will remember 
this lady tenderly, and know that one may rely upon a 
statement made by her. She taught here, and in Bath, 
Long Island, and was also an art-student in this city 
some years after she had these strange clairvoyant ex- 
periences. It was then that I had the pleasure of her 
friendship, and she told me these occurrences. 

TOLD BY MR. JOHN GARNIS. 

One of the friends of our family was Mr. John Gar- 
nis. I believe he was well known as a prominent busi- 
ness man in Cincinnati. He was very intelligent and a 
person who was not easily to be imposed upon. He 
had made a fortune, kept a bright lookout in every direc- 
tion, and said just what he meant on all occasions. 

I remember when I was about nine years old that he 
called on my grandmother, as he was in the habit of 
doing every time he came to the city, and began to tell 
a story of a clairvoyant to whose rooms a friend had re- 
cently taken him. 

He said that he thought of his wife whom he had 
left in another city — Philadelphia, I believe — and the 
clairvoyant went into the trance state and declared that 
he had found her. He described her as an unusually 
large, tall lady, as she was, in deep mourning, and said 
that she was superintending the moving of the family 
belongings into a new house. Mr. Garnis knew that 
this was to be done shortly, but did not believe that the 
dwelling was yet ready for occupation. However, he 
asked the clairvoyant to describe the house. He at 
once said that it was built of red marble. Mr. Garnis 



12 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

tried to make him believe himself mistaken. But he in- 
sisted on the red marble, which was really the material 
that had been used. He also said that a very large 
mirror had been injured, or was likely to be, I forget 
which, but at the moment there was great excitement 
in regard to such a glass. He saw a desk brought in 
and described it ; and on this, Mr. Garnis had asked him 
to see if there was a letter in the drawer of this desk, 
and, if so, to read it. He asserted that he did so. It 
was an ordinary business letter, but he gave its whole 
contents and the signature. 

There was more that I have lost from my memory, 
but Mr. Garnis said that he wrote home at once, found 
that his wife had moved on that very day and that the 
statement in regard to the mirror was correct. He had 
known before that the house was of red marble and 
that the contents of the letter had been given correctly. 



13 



CHAPTER 2. 

THE APPEARANCE OF DEPARTED SPIRITS. 

Those who, as yet, have lost no dear one, are apt 
either to laugh at " a ghost," as something " funny," or to 
feel a profound repugnance to the subject. That is quite 
right and wholesome, as it is perfectly natural. While 
all we love still live, why should we think of the dead ? 
Most very young people have a curious feeling toward 
those who have lost many friends. They cannot under- 
stand, as they do in later years, that this is the common 
lot, and that none escape it, save by dying in their youth ; 
they feel as though the mourners were specially set 
apart. 

How well I remember saying to myself — " If those I 
love should die, I should surely die too," and believing 
that people on whom such blows fell must be specially 
made to endure them ; that they could not love their 
parents, their brothers and their sisters as I did, and 
still go on eating and drinking and sleeping and even 
taking some comfort in life. The dead are other 
people's dead in those glad times, and we only wish not 
to think about them. And then, though we usually 
hear about another world in Sunday-school and church, 
and, in a sort of general way, expect to go to Heaven, 
we do not ask ourselves much about that either ; still 
less, perhaps, in those years when childhood has passed, 



14 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

and the day of dreams has come. Neither poet nor 
preacher can paint a paradise more perfect than the 
gardens of delight we find on earth while love and hope 
walk hand in hand with us, under youth's blue skies, be- 
side sweet fountains and amongst the roses. And such 
joy may remain with the wife and mother for long 
years, so that every night she thanks Heaven that she 
lives. 

But one day the shadow of death crosses the thres- 
hold of the little home. " One is taken and the other 
lefty If the one who is left be the woman, fiends 
might pity her, for the earth becomes a desert, and 
all that made it beautiful vanishes thence. The 
brighter life has been in the past, the deeper is its 
darkness now. 

" Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/' seem to her, 
" all the uses of the world." 

There is nothing worth doing, or having ; nothing 
worth living for — and oh, the astonishment, the awful 
surprise of it, the difficulty of believing that this can 
really have happened ! 

It has seemed as if Heaven smiled on such innocent 
happiness as that of home love ; as if God had given a 
promise of its continuance because it was so sweet and 
holy, and all the while (it appears at this moment to 
the wretched mourner) He did not care. How many 
a young widow has felt, in her desolation, that she was 
deserted by the Heaven in which she had put her trust ! 
More than ever, when the first hours of passionate lam- 
entation passed, the woeful time comes when she 
knows that she must go on living without him, when 



THE FREED SPIRIT. I 5 

the thought, best conveyed in Mrs. Browning's words : 



* The heart which, like a staff, was one 

For mine to lean and rest upon ; 

The strongest on the longest day, 

With steadfast love— is caught away, 

And yet my days go on, go on.' 1 



is with her always. 

Nor is it only the widow who feels thus, but any one 
of two who have lived in perfect affection and confi- 
dence together, mother and child, brother and sister, or 
sometimes two who are not kindred, save in soul. 

Now, indeed, the mourner begins to ponder on an- 
other world than this, to ask herself if, in the beyond, 
they twain may not meet again. It is all she cares for 
now. All the blue has gone out of the sky, all the 
sweetness out of the flowers, all is cold and harsh that 
once was soft and pleasant. Wealth would be value- 
less — for I am not talking of widows who are comforted 
by being " left well off," or of kindred who find satis- 
faction in inheriting real estate or portable property ; 
but of those to whom love was life — and all the rest only 
of value because it could make the dear one's days 
brighter — the woman to whom a new dress or a bright 
ribbon, a rose in the belt, or a jewel at the throat, were 
not mere tributes to vanity, but valued only as they 
made her fairer to her beloved ; and of the man who re- 
joiced in a beautiful home, because his dear ones dwelt 
within its walls ; in a full purse, because it enabled him 
to gratify the wishes of those dependent on him. For 
such, for all who have adored and lost, life's day is at 



l6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

an end forever when the well-beloved has passed be- 
yond his ken. May it not be that the Omnipotent has 
now and then permitted the curtain to be lifted, the 
gate to be left ajar, that through them, illuminating the 
darkness of the gloomy night, may shine the light of 
one soft star, or that, listening intently, they may hear 
the angels whisper — " Have courage, the pure in heart 
shall meet again." 

If for such purpose the spirit is permitted to linger, 
or to return, who shall scoff at those who open their 
arms in welcome ? 

For my part, I am quite sure that in the dying hour, 
adieux may be given. One proof that I have of this 
is a story that has gone with me all my woman's years, 
a tale I cannot doubt, because no false word ever fell 
from the lips that uttered it. It is neither more nor 
less than what I call it — my grandmother's ghost story. 

MY GRANDMOTHER'S GHOST STORY, AND MY OWN. 

Lest you should fancy my grandmother a super- 
stitious old lady, fond of curdling the blood in people's 
veins with tales of the ghostly sort, I must tell you first 
that she was a gentlewoman of high social position, a 
beauty in her youth, the centre of a literary circle in 
her prime, when people knew her as a writer of poems 
and sketches, and, all her life, a bright, sensible and emi- 
nently practical woman, who never told ghost stories, 
and, though she penned many tales, never wrote one in 
which a spectre figured. 

Yet, this is her ghost story ; I have added nothing to 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 7 

it, I have subtracted nothing from it. She never told 
it to a stranger and she never told it to me until I was 
fifteen years old, when my mother informed me that 
grandma had once had a strange experience, which 
I might persuade her to relate. 

I shall never forget the expression that crossed her 
face as she yielded to my persuasions. I wish I could 
tell it in her own words ; I wish I could bring her dear 
face before you as it rises before my memory at this 
moment. The tone, the look were convincing, and 
would be enough for me, but proofs in black and white 
existed, and may yet exist, for all I know, that estab- 
lished the tale as "veridical." My grandmother was 
born in Newport, in the day when Malbone painted 
his first miniatures there, for he painted little Harriet 
with .flowers in her tiny hands. Her mother was a 
daughter of Colonel Belcher, who was an officer 
of the English army. Her father was a Frenchman, 
who, in a romantic spirit, relinquished a title when he be- 
came a resident of the United States, preferring the 
Republican prefix, Mr., especially as he had entered into 
business. The little home was a very happy one. The 
parents were young, her father very merry, and light- 
hearted. 

Colonel Belcher had already passed away when little 
Harriet came to her seventh year, and Mrs. Belcher had 
come to live with her daughter. My grandmother re- 
membered her as large and stately, wearing a profusion 
of snow-white hair, combed up over a cushion, and bro- 
caded gowns that would stand alone when placed upon 
the floor, so rich was their material. 



1 8 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

Her daughter, however, was delicate as a flower, sen- 
sitive and emotional. She adored her husband, who 
was devoted to her, and lived only to be loved and 
petted. 

Young as she was, my grandmother could remember 
her father's return from several voyages, which he made 
in connection with his business. His voyages were 
mostly to India, she believed. He always returned 
in high spirits, laden with presents for every one, 
and for days afterward there was nothing but feast- 
ing and merriment. Hosts of friends were enter- 
tained ; it was a time of music, dancing and con- 
gratulations. The mother seemed to become herself 
a child again. But when once more Mr. Geoffroi spoke 
of making another voyage, she became depressed. " Life 
was unendurable without her Andrew," she often de- 
clared. At last came a time, when, having made every 
^rangement for one of his departures, the young hus- 
band was about to say adieu to his wife. He had al- 
ready put his arm about her waist and bent his head to 
meet her lips, when she flung herself upon her knees 
before him, and clasping her hands, cried in frantic 
tones, " Ah ! Andrew, do not leave me ; if you do, you 
will never see me again. This is no fancy, I know it ! 
If you go now, we part forever ! You must not, you 
shall not make this voyage ! " 

My grandmother could remember how this affected 
her father, how he knelt beside his wife ; how he took her 
in his arms and held her to his bosom. He was so deep- 
ly impressed that, had it been possible, he would have re- 
mained at home, but it appeared to him that it was im- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 19 

possible. His luggage was already on board, he had 
entered into certain contracts, and was in honor bound 
to do certain things. 

"I must go this time, dearest," he said, " but I prom- 
ise to make no more voyages. Others shall attend to 
my affairs ; I will never leave you again. When I come 
home I will stay with you, I swear it." 

All that the poor wife could do was to weep and to 
repeat, " I shall never see you again, Andrew ! never ! " 
And when at last their lips met in the final kiss, she 
whispered : 

" This is our eternal adieu " — and fainted away. 

For his part, Andrew Geoffroi departed sobbing, as 
one leaves the grave of a loved one. His thought was 
that this excitement might prove too much for the deli- 
cate woman he adored, and for whom there was special 
reason at the time to feel anxiety. 

He had no fear for himself. " The sea and I are 
friends," he had often declared, " and I am never happier 
than when afloat." 

This time, however, he sailed with a sad heart, long- 
ing only for the hour that would bring him home again. 

For a few days Mrs. Geoffroi was ill, then she said no 
more of her presentiment ; the child thought she had 
forgotten it. 

My grandmother remembered every incident of that 
night in early autumn, a time of special beauty in New- 
port, when she followed her mother up-stairs to bed. 
It was about nine o'clock ; they kept early hours then, 
and especially just at that time. 

The tall clock, with the great, moon-like pendulum, 



20 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

and big weights, and the ship that rocked on mimic bil- 
lows, had sounded at the same time as the "nine o'clock 
bell," which sent young folks home from their parties, 
so that very particular folk were spoken of as " Tied to 
the Bell Rope." 

Patience, the maid, in cap and apron, lit them with a 
tall candle ; little Harriet clung to her mother's hand, 
which was put out behind her, in a pretty, girlish way 
she had. 

When they went into the bed-room, Patience lit the 
two candles on the dressing-table, and drew the window 
curtains carefully. 

In those days a bed-room was a solemn affair, with 
massive chests of drawers, dressing-tables, with draped 
glasses, deep arm-chairs and tall foot-stools. The bed 
was very large and wide, a pile of feathers, with bol- 
sters, pillows, many blankets and wonderful quilts. 
Four tall posts arose to the ceiling, between them a 
canopy was stretched, and from this curtains depended 
on all sides. The legs of the bedstead were so long 
that its occupant ascended to it by a set of steps, and it 
had a " valance," ruffled and edged and otherwise dec- 
orated. 

When her father was away, little Harriet slept in her 
mother's room, in a curious piece of furniture of the day 
called a trundle-bed, a little thing on wheels, which 
was pushed under the great bed during the day and 
drawn out at the foot at night. Patience now pulled 
this bed forward, and proceeded to brush her lady's 
hair, untie her slippers and unlace her stays. 

Then, having undressed the child, she left them for a 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 21 

t 
little to their prayers and returned to complete her 

duties, one of which was " tucking in" the quilts of 

both beds, a high art of those days. Then she drew 

her lady's bed-curtains, leaving a space opposite the 

steps open, so that the great bed took upon itself the 

appearance of a house with a door, the child thought. 

Said " Anything more, Ma'am ? " And being told that 

there was nothing, blew out the candles on the dressing 

table, took her own and went into the adjoining room, 

where she herself slept, and shut the door. The large 

apartment was now totally dark ; not as much as a beam 

of starlight stole through the window curtains ; nothing 

in the room was visible. My grandmother was sure 

that she was asleep in less than five minutes. 

Usually she slumbered soundly until the morning. On 
this occasion she started wide awake with a conscious- 
ness of very novel sensations. She was intensely cold 
and extremely thirsty. All through her limbs ran 
curious thrills, which she long afterward learned were 
similar to those produced by the electric battery of the 
physician, then unknown to any one. 

Something seemed to be combing her curls, separat- 
ing every individual hair and lifting it straight up from 
her head. She longed for a glass of water and tried to 
call Patience to bring her one, but she had no voice : it 
was entirely gone. She strove to rise, but could not 
stir, and then, to her joy, she saw a light begin to grow 
in the room. 

" Patience must be coming with a candle," she said 
to herself, but no Patience appeared, nor was the glow 
that of a candle ; it was delicately but decidedly blue, 



22 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

it filled the whole room and revealed every object, but 
was brightest where the curtains were parted, and the 
child could see her mother's head upon the white pil- 
low. At this instant the clock in the hall below struck 
twelve. At the last stroke, without having seen how 
he came or whence, she perceived her father standing 
in this bright space, looking down upon her mother. 

He was clad in a long, white dressing-gown, about 
his head was fastened a white bandage, and he was very- 
pale. At first his profile was presented to her, but in a 
little while he turned his head, his eyes met hers and he 
smiled, but very sadly. Then he did not u go " or fade 
away, he simply was not there. The light went out 
and all those curious feelings departed from the child's 
frame and she was her little, warm, comfortable self 
again and not in the least frightened. 

She was only seven years old, had never heard, read 
or thought of the supernatural, and what she believed 
was that her father had returned after they were all in 
bed, that he would not awaken her mother, of whom 
he was always considerate, but that by way of jest he 
had pulled her hair and made her feel strangely. It 
troubled her to think that he must have hurt his head. 
Still she had once " bumped " her forehead and 
grandma cured it readily with her ointment. And 
happy to know that papa had come home, and with 
visions of the pleasant morrow in her mind, the child 
went to sleep again, but not at once, she was too 
thoroughly awakened and excited. 

Early in the morning, she opened her eyes once more, 
jumped out of bed, and began to run from room to 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 23 

room in her little, bare feet, looking for her father. 
Coming to her grandmother's room, she begged to be 
told where she could find her father, and at first refused 
to believe that he was not in the house or that she had 
only dreamed that he was there. 

" It w r as not a dream," she declared, " I was wide 
awake and saw him, grandma." 

The grandmother turned pale, and very, very grave 
at this. She took from her work-bag a pocket-book 
she always carried, and wrote dowm the date, the fact 
that the child had heard the clock strike twelve, and all 
the particulars of the story. Then she charged her not 
to tell her mother of this dream, " for it must be a 
dream, child," she said, " since nothing of the sort has 
happened, and your mother is not very well and might 
be frightened." And though little Harriet repeated 
" dreams are not like that," she obeyed her grand- 
mother. 

The two now had a secret between them, and the old 
lady waited with terrible anxiety for news of the vessel 
in which Andrew Geoffroi had sailed, anxiety which 
finally communicated itself to the little girl. 

Well did she remember how their hopes arose when 
the ship came into port at last. But alas, it did not 
bring Andrew Geoffroi. His wife's presentiment was 
not meaningless — he returned to her no more in this 
world. 

It was a story common enough in that day. In mid- 
ocean a mutiny had broken out onboard, soon quelled 
and with little loss of life. Its ringleaders lay below in 
chains ; but alas ! at its outset, a drunken wretch had 



24 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

broken open the door of Mr. Geoffroi's state-room, 
mistaking it for that of the captain. 

Unaware of the disturbance, he was sitting at his 
table, writing a letter to his wife. He wore a white 
dressing-gown. The wretch struck him a blow with a 
handspike, cleaving his skull. When the ship's surgeon 
had bound the wound with a white cloth, it was exactly 
midnight. At the last stroke of the hour the dying man 
opened his eyes and moaned : 

'" Ah God, if I could but see my wife once more — 
once more," and so breathed his last. 

Who shall say his prayer was not answered, for the 
night was the night of his little daughter's vision, the 
hour was the hour. She had seen his head bound up and 
the wound was in his head. The bandage was white, 
what had been used was a linen towel. The robe she 
had seen on the figure was such an one as he wore as he 
sat writing in his state-room, and his last earthly words 
had been of his wife, his last wish to look upon her face 
again. 

The facts were well attested. There was Mrs. Bel- 
cher's pocket-book, in which all the child had told her 
had been written down under the date of the dream, 
with the hour given. There was an official record of 
the events by the captain of the vessel, another by one 
of the officers, and the letter Mr. Geoffroi had just be- 
gun, dated, and containing an allusion to the lateness of 
the hour. These records were in existence for years, 
to prove my grandmother's story true. 

The tale needed still another tragedy to complete it : 
the young wife died of a broken heart and little Harriet 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 2$ 

was left an orphan. However, she had an affectionate 
grandmother, and was happily married at sixteen. She 
became a widow early, married a second time, and 
again wore widow's weeds. The only one of her chil- 
dren who outlived babyhood was my mother. 

Naturally, the affection between them was intense; 
they never parted from each other. My grandmother 
lived with my mother after the latter was married and 
was as dear to us as she was. 

We all looked up to her, and, from old habit, my 
mother never did anything of importance without tak- 
ing wise counsel of my grandmother. Every one loved 
her, and people seldom get more love than they deserve 
in this world. My father gave her all the affection of 
a true son, and she often said that she loved him as well 
as she did her own child. 

After her death, we all felt for years as though she 
were still with us and we had told her everything and 
knew what she thought about new acquaintances whom 
she had never seen, and once, while my father, mother 
and myself were sitting before the fire, this happened : 

The door of grandmother's room opened, her step 
fell on the floor, we heard the sound of her hand as she 
rested it on the edge of a piece of furniture to support 
herself (for she had been feeble for some time before 
she passed from among us), just as though we had 
been sitting in the dark and had heard her enter. 

My father had an actual scorn of superstition, but it 
was not only I and my mother who breathed my grand- 
mother's name, he uttered it also. What he said was : 
" My God— that is mother." 



26 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

He spoke in solemn and reverential tones. Then we 
sat quietly, holding each other's hands for many 
minutes, and never afterward alluded to the experience. 
But it was positive, a thing to remember while one 
lived, as I shall. 

That was long ago ; I have never heard her since, but 
I have seen her. 

MY OWN STORY. 

In the month of September, 1885, my mother was 
living and, seemingly, in good health, and likely to live 
for many years longer. 

We had for three summers occupied a house at 
Mianus, a little Connecticut village, not far from Cos- 
Cob station, and were staying later than usual. 

I had been out for a walk one pleasant afternoon, 
and had come home to find my mother reading in the 
dining-room. My sisters went up-stairs, but I sat down 
upon a lounge in the room, and, feeling curiously lazy, 
stretched my feet out, shut my eyes and instantly fell 
asleep. I have never known myself to sleep so soundly 
in the day-time, and it was unusual for me to take that 
sort of nap. When I awoke it was still a warm, bright 
twilight. 

I lifted myself on my elbow and looked about the 
room and noted several things. Particularly that while 
I slept, the new servant had been setting the tea-table 
without awakening me by the necessary clatter. 

As I thought of this, the girl brought in two plates of 
bread, and I noticed that she had arranged the slices in 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 27 

a very pretty way, the edges overlapping and turned in- 
ward, and I saw that everything she had placed on the 
table was arranged with geometrical precision, and said 
to myself "she is neat," and felt the usual satisfaction 
in thinking this of a newly hired domestic. 

I tell you this that you may know I was wide awake, 
for afterward I found that all was just as I saw it then. 

Meanwhile, I noticed that my mother sat in a small 
carpet-chair, quite unemployed, which was unusual for 
her, for she generally had a book in her hand, if she 
were not otherwise busy. "Somehow," I thought to 
myself, as the girl left the room, " mother does not look 
as she usually does." I had never perceived that there 
was any resemblance between my mother and grand- 
mother, except the color of their eyes, but now my 
mother's features seemed the counterpart of grandma's. 
The sudden and perfect likeness startled me ; and again, 
my mother never wore a cap : her hair, still black, though 
mixed with gray, was worn as she had worn it for long 
years. Now it was smoothed back beneath a little lace 
cap, with white satin ribbons, and she had on her 
shoulders a silk shawl of a soft cream color. I had 
never known mother to wear such a shawl. 

In face, pose of the figure and every item of the 
dress, she had suddenly become the very counterpart 
of grandmother — and what was she looking at so wist- 
fully? 

I followed the direction of the dark eyes, and saw, at 
the other end of the long table, my mother, her head 
bent over the last page of a book which she was intent on 
finishing before the light faded. Utterly absorbed in 



28 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

it, she noticed nothing else ; it was her way when a book 
pleased her. 

The difference in the two faces was more marked 
than I had thought it. 

" It was Grandmother" — I said, under my breath — 
" Grandmother." 

I looked back again at the little carpet-chair, but it 
was empty. I arose and went out into a place we called 
the grove ; there I walked up and down, saying to my- 
self : " after twenty years I have seen her again, after 
twenty years I have seen her." I had no doubt what- 
ever about it, it was as if one I knew to be alive had come 
and gone in that strange way. I had been no more 
excited than I should have been in meeting a living 
friend so dear as she had been, after so long an absence. 

Whatever it was, it was no dream. I said to myself 
over and over again, " After twenty years I have seen 
her again," and the impression made upon my mind 
was that wherever she dwelt her thoughts were with 
us still, her tenderness yet ours. The look she had 
fixed upon my mother was a very earnest one, and 
I remembered that old belief — the superstition of the 
peasant everywhere — that when the spirit of a mother 
is seen looking at a son or daughter, it is because death 
is close at hand. 

I tried to drive the thought away, but it remained 
with me, although, at the time, my mother was in ex- 
cellent health and spirits and showed few signs of age, 
and there was no special reason for anxiety. 

I never told my mother of this happening, nor my 
other relatives, until afterward. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 2g 

In November, my mother was suddenly taken ill and 
died after a few weeks' illness, and, in my sorrow, I con- 
fess that the memory of my vision has sometimes com- 
forted me, for though others may believe it an hallucina- 
tion, I have never been able to consider it one, and it is 
sweet to think that those two are together, and that 
mother-love is eternal. 



30 



CHAPTER 3. 

ODD HAPPENINGS. 

Curious things continually occur in commonplace 
households which are whisked away out of sight be- 
cause there seems to be no place for them, nothing for 
them to stand on. The good housekeeping — so to 
speak — of certain orderly minds, consigns to the " trash- 
barrel" or the " rubbish-hole " everything that cannot 
be ranged neatly against its walls or hung upon them in 
geometrical order. 

When a member of a family with minds of this sort 
has an unaccountable experience, and relates it, the 
general verdict is that " John is mistaken," or " Susy 
could not have seen straight," or " Sarah must have 
been dreaming." 

Sarah knows she did not dream, Susy saw as she 
always did, and John knows that he made no mistake ; 
but it is not worth while to argue, nor wise, if they wish 
to keep a reputation for common-sense. In such a 
household, a good, old-fashioned ghost, resembling the 
ironing-board that " came out of a dark corner " and 
" scared Susy half to death," would be more readily 
accepted than what one might call fragments of the 
occult. 

But there are others who gather up these things and 
store them away and ask what they mean, and asking, 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 3 1 

find that they at least mean something and are glad to 
have it in their mental collection, just as some men re- 
joice in a broken bit of sculpture with certain signs 
about it which would be scornfully thrown away by the 
majority, who do not seethe tokens that they bear. 

Before many years more, regard will be paid to the 
singular little symptoms of the fact that the spirit of 
man has certain powers of which, as yet, we have not 
become aware. 

I knew a lady, who, while dressing her hair in rather 
a cold room, felt and saw that her dressing robe was 
unfastened at the throat, the button having been 
wrenched off by the laundress. 

Her neck and bosom were thus partially uncovered, 
but she looked in vain for a pin, there was none to be 
found. Therefore she went on with her hair, leaving 
her robe as it was ; she was not at all nervous about her- 
self or fearful of catching cold. Suddenly a thought 
from some other person came to her. 

Not her own thought, as she says she was " spoken to, 
and not spoken to''; there was no audible utterance. 
Something gave her these words, as it were, within her- 
self: 

"You will have pneumonia, as I did." The image 
of a pleasant friend, who had recently passed away with 
the disorder mentioned, occurred to her mind, and she 
said to herself : 

" If I believed in spirits I should say that the dear 
soul had tried to give me good advice — and I must 
take heed of it." And so, without more delay, she 
turned toward the door of an adjoining room wherfe 



32 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

she was sure to find a pin-cushion, when she found 
that her robe was fastened carefully and neatly pinned 
across the bosom. 

She will swear that she could find no pin, that her 
hands were above her h3ld when those words of warn- 
ing came to her, and that she saw herself reflected in 
the mirror before which she stood, with her sack wide 
open. As she turned away it had been fastened, and 
with peculiar accuracy. Of course, common-sense says 
a lapse of memory, she found a pin and forgot finding 
it, but my friend was very, verv sure that this was 
not so. 

This is the sort of thing that it is very hard not to 
believe a delusion. The ordinary spiritualistic idea of it 
would be, that the spirit stood unseen beside the lady 
and pinned her sack ; but there is another idea, it is 
this — the thought of the spirit may have been powerful 
enough to have caused the sack to be fastened. That 
seems at first a wilder idea than the other. A Theoso- 
phist could put it into better form : there are words for 
everything of the sort in Theosophy, but I dare not use 
them because I only partially know what they mean, 
and I might not use them quite correctly, or if I did, 
you might never have heard them before. 

People are apt to say to themselves that it does not 
matter what they think, if only their actions are all 
right. 

It would be well if children were oftener taught to 

watch their thoughts, to try to think kindly of every 

one. A thought may be a blessing or a curse. Who 

"would not shudder at the idea of being cursed aloud in 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 33 

solemn form ? The curses only thought are just as fear- 
ful. People of whom others think in wrath and hate are 
conscious of it, sometimes, and a loving thought from 
afar may become almost palpable. Lovers know that. 

Two people, absolutely in love, are aware of facts 
about each other that they have no means of knowing, 
save that their thoughts meet. They can say things to 
each other, though they are half ashamed to believe it, 
if they are educated people, and naturally do not tell 
any one about it. When married people remain true 
to each other, this power grows more intense ; I have 
seen it exemplified twenty times. 

Once, I remember, one of "my sisters said to me : 

" I have the funniest fancy just now. It seems to 
me that Charley (her husband) is playing with a little 
black dog." 

When Dr. H came home a few hours after, he be- 
gan to tell a story of a queer little black dog that came 
up to him in the street, leaped upon him and would not 
be driven away. 

Therefore, though I have only read what follows in a 
daily paper, I give it credence. It is what I suppose 
the " rapport" of living married folk will ultimately 
result in. 

It is a story of one married couple who declare 
that they have discovered that they can communicate 
their thoughts without using pen and ink, no matter 
how far apart they may be. The man is a commercial 
traveler. 

Wherever he is, he goes at a certain fixed hour to 
his room in the hotel at which he stops — ten in the 



34 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

evening, if I remember correctly — fastens the door and 
sits down in the dark, and, of course, entirely alone. At 
the same hour the wife goes to their ordinary sitting- 
room, shuts and locks the door, places a chair at the 
fireside, takes another opposite it, and sits quietly in 
the dark, just as he is sitting. In a few moments, to 
her appreciation and to his, he is there, in his chair 
opposite her. They do not speak, but by some species 
of mental telegraphy, he makes her aware of all that 
has happened to him, and she tells him everything that 
has transpired at home. 

He declares that they can do it more thoroughly than 
by writing, and prefer it. There has never been a mis- 
take made during several years, and the gentleman says 
that they discovered this power by accident. 

And what is a letter ? Only the feeble interpreta- 
tion of our thoughts, ideas, emotions, into characters, 
which, one by one, we slowly place on paper. It is a 
happy and wonderful thing that we are able to bridge 
the distance between ourselves and our dear ones in 
this way, but what mistakes we may make when the 
same word means two things or the writer does not 
know how to spell. A certain poet tells us how, once, 
upon a time, the good angels took advantage of this, 
and helped a poor w r idow thereby. 

For the miserly old landlord had sent word to her 
lawyer to " remit " her rent, in the sense of making her 
pay it at once, and the lawyer read it in the other sense, 
and so remitted it, and this remission filled the widow's 
heart with gratitude, which she poured out upon the 
head of the old miser, who had never given any one 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 35 

cause to thank him thus before, and could not forego 
the unaccustomed delight, and found his heart softened, 
so that all ended in a Christmas dinner at the widow's 
and the birth of generous intentions in the miser's soul. 

But not always do good angels seize these opportu- 
nities, and a word misunderstood has been the cause of 
life-long quarrels between friends, and the parting of 
lovers. 

If thoughts could meet, without the aid of pen, ink 
and paper, can you not see how much better it would 
be ? — or even than speech, for few of us have perfect 
command of language, and we continually misunder- 
stand each other. I think that we will communicate 
thus in the beyond. 

But now I want to tell you of one or two other things 
that I know to be true, though I cannot explain them. 

The first is about my song — my one and only song, 
which, curiously enough, I did not hear myself sing, 
and had to take as a fact on hearsay evidence. 

MY ONE SONG. 

, It used to provoke me greatly, in my girlish days, 
that I could not sing. I would have resigned all other 
accomplishments if in place of them I could but have 
possessed a genius for vocal music. I always deluded 
myself with the idea that I should some day discover 
that every one had been mistaken, that at least I had 
" latent talent," and when I married I fancied my hus- 
band, who was apt to think that whatever I did was 
well done, would assure me that all I needed was study 
and practice. 



36 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

Alas, for my hopes ! Mr. Dallas had an unusually 
correct ear and was a fine judge of music, and he de- 
cided that I could not sing at all. 

One night, however, he awakened me to tell me a 
wonderful tale. 

I had been singing, not only correctly, but, he de- 
clared, " charmingly/' and with all the little tricks of a 
professional vocalist. 

I thought that he was joking, but he vowed that he 
was only uttering the simple truth. I was sitting up 
with my eyes shut and sang a song of three verses from 
beginning to end. Then I assumed an expression of 
deep content and laid me down again, and he aroused 
me to tell me of it. 

I had not dreamed of singing, or of anything ; I 
seemed to myself to have been wrapped in profound 
slumber. 

I was quite sure then that I should find that I could 
sing next day, but I could not ; it was just the same as 
before. I could only think that while the " I " that 
could not sing slumbered, the " I " that knew it could 
kept awake and gave a performance for its own benefit. 

A REAL " GRANDFATHER'S CLOCK." 

Mr. John H is the proprietor of a hotel, which 

is within New York City precincts. 

With him has resided, until now, his father, who was 
a mechanician of repute. In the house — I believe in the 
family sitting-room — he had placed a clock of his own 
manufacture, which was the pride of his heart. It was 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 37 

always in perfect order, and the old gentleman invari- 
ably wound it himself. It was the reliable time-piece 
of the neighborhood, as well as a beautiful piece of 
workmanship. 

One evening — Friday, November 18th, 1892, old Mr. 

H , being in usual health, and having left the house 

to walk in the garden for a while — a tremendous whirr 
and crash startled every one in the room, and it was 
found that the famous clock had stopped as suddenly 
as if some violence had been done to it. 

Naturally, the young people thought at once of their 
grandfather, and one remarked — " I wonder why grand- 
father stays so long ? " And they began to look for him. 

He was found upon the porch, and as they ran to his 
side, he breathed his last gasp. He was dying when 
his precious clock, the work of his own hands, and for 
which he felt a peculiar fondness — " stopped short, 

never to go again " — for the H family declare that 

no hand shall ever touch it more. 

WHAT WAS IT ? 

A relative of mine, a gentleman of strong, good 
sense, and utterly opposed to everything that lovers of 
the mysterious best like to believe in, was once staying 
at a country boarding-house, and one night had retired, 
as usual, when suddenly the bed clothes were jerked 
from above him. 

He supposed that some one was playing him a trick, 
and uttered some words to that effect, and arose to re- 
place the coverings. Having done so, he lit a light, 



38 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

found that his door was locked, examined closets, 
looked under the bed and up chimney, and retired 
again. 

Once more the same thing happened. Again he 
searched, examined the corners of the quilts and sheets, 
shut down the windows, which had been open, and com- 
posed himself to slumber. He was awakened by having 
the coverings all removed with extraordinary violence, 
and on examination, found them hurled across the 
room. Again he searched, went into the passage, 
opened the windows and looked out, examined the 
walls, the floor, the ceiling, and, on retiring, experienced 
the same annoyance. 

At last he put out the light, got into bed and rolled 
himself in the coverings. He asserts that they were 
violently pulled, and that he used all his strength to 
hold his position, but did so and went to sleep. 

The next day he examined the room carefully, but 
could find no hole or aperture anywhere. There was 
no trap-door in the ceiling or the floor, no one could 
have entered, and though the trick could be done with 
cords and fish-hooks, there was no way in which this 
could have been arranged that night. He, however, 
always declared that some human being had played a 
practical joke upon him. 

My brother-in-law, Mr. Charles L. Hildreth, told me 
the incident I will now relate. It happened years ago, 
when his mother was a young woman, living at home 
with her parents. 

She had retired to bed in good health and spirits and 
had fallen asleep, when she was awakened by a heart- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 39 

rending scream from the lower floor, and the next 
moment her mother's voice uttered the words — " quick ! 
they have killed your father ! — oh, your father ! " 

Trembling with horror, the daughter rushed into the 
passage, but the house was dark and silent, and when 
she reached her parents' room she found them both 
sound asleep. No one had called her, nothing had 
happened. 

The illusion had been so perfect that she could 
scarcely credit the fact that it was one, and the next 
day there was some talk on the subject of what was 
supposed to be her dream, and when she retired she 
remarked that she hoped she would never have another 
so terrible. 

However, she had slept but a little while, when a 
scream broke her slumber, and, as she lifted her head, 
she heard the same words — " they have killed your 
father ! — oh, your father ! " 

Certain that this was only a repetition of the delusion 
of last night, she lay still, determined not to disturb the 
house again — but the screams continued, she heard the 
sounds of men's feet upon the stairs and the tumult of 
many voices. 

This time it was no delusion whatever, her father had 
been killed by a drunken ruffian as he was returning to 
his home and had been brought back dead. 

I have a friend who, after sitting at a table for some 
time, can always tell those who sit with her how any 
deceased person, whose name they write upon a paper, 
came to his end. 

It is not guess-work, but quite a certain thing. I 



40 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

heard her give the answer — " lost at sea," in reply to 
such a question concerning one of whom she knew noth- 
ing, whose name she had never heard before, and that 
without hesitation. In regard to the four persons whose 
names were given her that evening she made no mis- 
take. 

This lady tells a story in which she at least believes 
implicitly. 

In her early girlhood, she had one evening been to a 
party and had had a very pleasant time, and returned 
home and retired, thinking of nothing but agreeable 
things. 

She lay awake going over the incidents of the affair 
for some little while, but went sound asleep at last and 
awakened to find herself standing in the corner. 

She fancied that she had risen in her sleep, but in a 
moment perceived that her body lay upon the bed, 
wearing its night dress and well wrapped up in the 
coverings. 

At first she was not frightened, but felt unusually 
light and well and happy. It was really delightful to 
have such airy, pleasant sensations, to feel as if she 
could float or fly if she chose, but suddenly the thought 
came to her, that if her spirit had left her body and 
this were death, she would soon be obliged to go away. 
She did not wish to leave her beloved ones, nor was 
she weary of life. Then her death would occasion grief 
and trouble. She longed to return to her body again, 
and made wild efforts to do so. Finally she found her- 
self suffering inexpressible agony in the effort to enter 
the silent frame lying so quietly upon the bed, her dear 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 41 

little body, which she began to feel that she loved, and 
as she says : 

" I did it, I got back, but I suffered frightfully in 
doing so." 

She positively declares that it was not a dream, but 
an actual experience, and in another case I have had 
the same thing told me, only that this lady, suffering 
from asthma, thought herself floating over her bed, 
saw the doctor, the nurse and other friends bending 
over her body, declaring that she was dead ; tried to re- 
turn and did so. However, being so ill, she could not 
be sure that she was not the victim of delusion, 
although it did not so appear to her at the time. 



42 



CHAPTER 4. 

DOPPLE GANGERS. 

The next event that I remember, which was out of 
the common, does not properly belong to any special 
order of mysteries. It was not a ghost, it was not a 
dream. The seer was not in a trance. It is really 
a case of what the Germans call the Dopple Ganger. 
If it proves anything, it is only that — u there are more 
things in Heaven and earth " than are dreamed of in 
any one's philosophy, and we all know that already, for 
every one who writes about the supernatural always 
quotes it in some portion of his article. 

When my brothers were boys, a friend of theirs, 
whom I shall call Will, was paying .them a visit. 

It was evening and my eldest brother had gone out. 
My younger brother and William were in the parlor, 
playing some game of cards. I left them there and 
went up-stairs. As I passed the door of what we called 
the " boys' room," I saw the gas flaring at a great 
height, and stepped in to turn it down. 

Then I saw some one lying fully dressed on a small 
single bed just below the gas jet. I thought my elder 
brother had come home, and said something to the 
effect that I was not aware that he had returned, and, 
as I spoke, saw that it was not my brother, but William, 
or, as we called him, Will. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 43 

It puzzled me to think that he had passed me in the 
hall without my being aware of it, and I went down 
stairs again. 

There was Will playing cards with my brother, as I 
had left them. 

I went up again, sure that my oldest brother had re- 
turned, went into the room, and saw what looked like 
Will again. I walked slowly forward and noticed that 
he lay with wide open eyes, perfectly motionless. The 
color of the cloth of his clothes was gray ; I noticed 
his collar and cuffs, his tie. I saw that the tints of his 
hair were more vivid than in nature, that his cheeks and 
lips were bright as if painted, and that his eyes were 
the brightest blue. A painting so colored would have 
been criticised as unnatural. 

I knew that I was the victim of some illusion, and I 
walked deliberately up to the side of the bed and put 
my hand upon the pillow. There was nothing there, 
nor did I now see anything. I went out at the door 
again, staid a moment in the entry, and, returning, saw 
the same figure in the same place. 

This time it vanished before I reached the bed. 

I repeated this three times. Finally, on entering the 
room, I saw nothing, and turning out the gas, went 
down to the parlor again. 

A few weeks after this, a friend from Philadelphia 
visited us. One afternoon we were in the back parlor 
and she said to me : 

" How long that friend of your brothers sleeps ! " 

"Do you mean Will?" I asked. " He is not in the 
house." 



44 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" He has been lying on the sofa in that room all the 
afternoon," she said ; " I have seen him several times." 

She added that he was lying very still. There was a 
certain nervousness in her manner that startled me. 

I went at once into the room she had indicated, and 
found no one there, and no one had been there, but 
my friend could scarcely be brought to believe it. 

AN APPARITION, RED, BLUE AND YELLOW. 

We were living quite in the suburbs of New York 
once upon a time, when, one day, my sister Louisa, re- 
turning homeward some time in the forenoon, saw a 
buggy stop at the corner of our street and a gentleman 
alight therefrom, exchanging some adieux with a lady 
who held the reins, and who was gayly attired in a blue 
silk dress, a red shawl and a yellow bonnet with plumes. 

In a few moments the lady drove rapidly away and 
the gentleman came toward my sister. He was elderly, 
with gray hair, and now she fancied that she recog- 
nized him as our family doctor. She bowed and waited 
for him to come up, but no sooner had she said " good- 
morning, doctor," than she discovered that she was mis- 
taken. 

This gentleman was not Dr. Van B , but he had 

taken his place beside her and walked on toward the 
house. He apparently fancied that my sister was some 
one he knew, and soon disclosed the fact that he was 
the new minister who had just taken charge of a new 
church hard by, and was paying his first visits to his 
congregation. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 45 

During the walk there was no lady anywhere near 
them ; indeed, no one whatever in the quiet street but 
a little boy. When they reached the house, the clergy- 
man entered, as a matter of course, shook hands with 
me, and went on with his talk about the church, the 
improvements, the Sabbath-school, etc., evidently think- 
ing that he was very cleverly concealing the fact that he 
did not know which members of his congregation he 
had called upon. 

The call over, he took his leave, and my sister Julia 
came running down stairs to ask who had called. Louisa 
told her of the mistake she had made, and we were 
laughing over it when Julia asked who the gorgeous 
lady was. 

" Oh, I did not ask," Louisa answered. 

" But he must have introduced her," Julia said. 

" No ; she did not leave the carriage," Louisa an- 
swered. 

"I mean the lady who called with him," said Julia. 
" I looked over the balustrades and saw her. She had 
a blue dress, a yellow bonnet and a red shawl." 

We both declared that no one had entered the door 
but the old clergyman, and Louisa asserted that, though 
a lady in the costume Julia described was in the carri- 
age, she had driven away, and the carriage had never 
been near enough to our house to be seen from the 
windows. 

They compared notes, and their descriptions of the 
dress, the shawl and the bonnet and feathers tallied ex- 
actly, only Louisa could merely say that the shawl was 
large, and Julia saw that the point and its fringe swept 



46 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

the carpet as the lady walked. She was behind the 
gentleman in entering the front door and in passing 
into the parlor. 

At the time we told this to no one, and never saw the 
lady again — at least in that brilliant costume, but we 
have always thought it a very curious occurrence. 



47 



CHAPTER s. 

SOMNAMBULISM. 

I have not personally known anything of somnam- 
bulism, and I trust I shall never have any experience 
of it. But it is a very singular phenomenon, and proves 
that we have some power of seeing, hearing and think- 
ing, sufficient to take care of ourselves while our or- 
dinary senses seem wrapped in slumber. We have all 
heard the old stock story — used up by authors and play- 
wrights long ago — of the somnambulist who robs him- 
self in that state, hides his money and jewels in a secret 
place, usually a vault, knowing nothing of it in his wak- 
ing moments, accuses innocent people of the theft, un- 
til, followed by a faithful friend, he awakens to find him- 
self out of his bed, clad in his night-robe, and busy in 
the task of concealing his own property, whereupon he 
is overcome with astonishment, and bestows dowries 
and blessings on everybody. 

This story had its origin in fact, an old nobleman be- 
ing the somnambulist ; and that in those days when 
people were hung for theft, so that his magpie work was 
no joke to those under suspicion. 

There seems to have been more of this sort of thing in 
the past than in the present, yet there are plenty of som- 
nambulists still. Sometimes they do useful, instead of 
mischievous things : As when they help themselves out 



48 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

of difficulties and dilemmas into which they have 
plunged during their waking moments. 

Musicians have had this experience, and boys, writ- 
ing their college valedictories. But the mathematician 
is the usual somnambulist. There are hundreds of 
cases on record in which he figures. 

MR. ALPHEUS BIXBY, 

A teacher in a school which my mother attended, used 
to tell his class this story : 

When he was a student, and a very ambitious one, 
he one day found himself utterly unable to solve a diffi- 
cult mathematical problem. He worked at it all day 
and he worked at it all the evening without conquering 
his difficulty, and as something depended upon his suc- 
cess, was not only provoked and mortified, but grieved 
that he should have failed to do what he had attempted. 
He went to bed in a most unhappy state of mind, but 
slept soundly — as he would have supposed, without 
stirring. 

In the morning, when he awoke, lo ! there, upon his 
table, lay the problem, accurately solved, perfectly 
copied, an excellent piece of work in every particular — 
and his own. 

In his sleep he had easily accomplished that which he 
found impossible in his waking moments. 

Domestic labor is not often attempted by the som- 
nambulist, but a Mrs. Brick, whom I knew years ago, 
used to tell a somnambulistic story about herself, though 
she never called it by that name. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 49 

She was a famous housekeeper, and would have been 
very unhappy if anything had been out of order about 
her premises, which she not only swept and dusted in 
the morning, but often at night before she went to bed, 
as well. Her meals were carefully cooked, and it was 
her delight to have everything of the best. 

She gave a great deal of thought to her dishes, and 
liked to devise new ones. She made and mended and 
patched, and darned, and ironed, and crimped the ruffles 
of the family wardrobe, and, in fact, was a model Yankee 
house-mother. Everything she did was well done, yet 
she was always anxious about everything until it was 
off her mind. This is her story: 

Once, upon a time, she had invited a large party to 
diniaer. 

She wished everything to be particularly nice, and 
had all the poultry, meat, vegetables, and other things 
necessary, already in the house. She was up rather 
lare, and retired, thinking of dinner — that was all she 
knew about it. 

Far on in the night, even in the small hours after 
twelve, Mr. Brick awakened to find his wife's pillow 
empty. At the same time he discovered that the house 
was redolent of the smell of cookery. It was not, by 
any means, time for breakfast, and his nose informed 
him that the odor was not that of the usual morning 
meal, but of one of Mrs. Brick's best dinners. There 
is a great difference, you know, between the smell of 
breakfast and of dinner. 

Astonished beyond expression, he arose and partially 
dressed himself, went softly down stairs, saw that his 



SO THE FREED SPIRIT. 

kitchen was quite dark, except where the light of the 
stove illuminated it. 

A bright fire was glowing, and cooking was evidently 
going on. 

In haste he lit a lamp, and behold — his wife sitting 
bolt upright upon her chair, with her eyes partially open, 
but evidently asleep. In this state, she had arisen, 
dressed herself, gone into her dark kitchen, lit a fire and 
cooked one of the very best dinners of her life — which 
was saying a good deal. 

She had not made a mistake, and when, a few 
moments later, she awakened, her astonishment knew 
no bounds. She had not the slightest consciousness of 
anything that had occurred since she had turned her 
head for the last time upon her pillow, having decided 
that hard sauce would be best for the pudding next 
day, and so feeling free to go to sleep again. 

I find one other record of somnambulism upon my 
list. Here it is : 

MISS primula's acrobatic performance. 

Miss , a maiden lady of very correct deportment, 

who belonged to a family remarkable for its serious 
views of life, and its dislike of anything like a joke, 
kept house for her bachelor brother in the old family 
residence in street. The other sisters were mar- 
ried and away, or had passed from earth, and Miss 
Primula — as I shall call her — ruled the establishment, 
and Mr. Joshua as well. 

Two or three old servants went through the regular 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 5 1 

routine of duty every day, and it was Miss Primula's 
boast that none of the family had ever been guilty of 
the least indecorum. That not even she had ever be- 
held Mr. Joshua in his shirt sleeves, and that she had 
never yet appeared before him in curl-papers and a 
wrapper. This was true. 

Judge of Mr. Joshua's feelings, then, when one night 
he was awakened by a ringing of the door-bell, and 
hurrying down found one of his neighbors at the door, 
who begged his pardon, but told him that it had be- 
come necessary that he should see to his sister's welfare. 

" And where is my sister?" gasped Mr. Joshua. 

" On the back fence," replied the neighbor, as gravely 
as he could. And on the back fence Mr. Joshua found 
Miss Primula, evidently asleep, and in great danger, if 
she should awaken suddenly. 

She was no longer young, nor had she had any prac- 
tice in acrobatic performances ; but there she was, in 
night-gown, ruffled cap and slippers, walking on the 
top of the fence as we sometimes see little boys do, 
balancing herself with her arms, and while the specta- 
tors, quite a party of whom had assembled, watched 
her with breathless interest, and did their best to pro- 
tect her from injury, she made the tour of the two back 
gardens, and at last let herself down to the ground on 
a grapevine trellis, in quite a scientific manner. The 
jar of descent awoke her, suddenly, and the shock, as 
well as her intense mortification, made her quite ill for 
several days — especially as her brother was so deeply 
mortified that he could not restrain his reproaches, and 
said rather frequently : 



52 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" I would not have believed it of you, Primula, had 
an angel told it of you." 

ABOVE THE WHIRLPOOL AT MIDNIGHT. 

And now I remember another instance of the sort, 
told me by a guest of the hotel at Trenton Falls, N. Y., 
when I was there with Mr. Dallas upon our wedding 
trip. 

If you have been to those falls, you know the narrow 
path upon the rocks above the whirlpool, guarded only 
by a little chain (when I saw it) — the place where once, 
upon a time, a bride in her honeymoon, dropping her 
expensive lace-trimmed handkerchief, stooped to catch 
it and fell. 

For days her body was seen whirling about in that 
dreadful water, and the poor bridegroom watched it, 
moaning and weeping, refusing to leave the spot, though 
nothing that fell into that whirlpool was ever gotten 
out again, and he should never be able even to lay his 
young wife's body in the grave. 

This story had one day been told, upon the very spot, 
to a guest, a sensitive' lady, who was much affected by 
it. She became so nervous that it was with difficulty 
her husband got her safely to the hotel again, and she 
was obliged to retire at once. That night a frightful 
storm arose, and in its midst the gentleman awoke to 
find his wife gone. As she was a somnambulist, his 
terror was very great. He discovered that she was not 
in the hotel, and, procuring lanterns, they went out in 
search of her. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 53 

The rocks near the whirlpool were so slippery with 
sleet that the men could scarcely keep their footing in 
rubber boots, but there was the lady, in night attire, 
bare-headed, quietly seated on the rocks. Fortunately, 
the men who discovered her obeyed her husband's or- 
ders and were quiet, and neither touched nor spoke to 
her, and finally she arose and came quietly forward. 

The whirlpool was left behind when she awoke, but 
her terror was excessive, and, as usual, she had known 
nothing of her escapade, though the story of the 
drowned bride had haunted her before she went to 
sleep and made her most unhappy. 

I believe that she did not suffer in any way from ex- 
posure to the cold, though her feet were bare and she 
wore nothing but fine white muslin. 

The somnambulist never falls, or slips, or strikes his 
head, or bruises or strains himself, save when he is sud- 
denly awakened. While asleep, he seems to lead a 
charmed life and to be much better able to take care 
of himself than in a normal condition. 



54 



CHAPTER 6. 

DREAMS. 

| 

I know a lady, a farmer's wife, who always dreams of 
a red cow, before news of death reaches her, or before 
death enters the family. 

I know another who always dreams of a little baby 
before calamity of any sort. She judges of what is to 
happen by the baby's conduct. If it is a sick child and 
weeps, death is about to deal a blow ; if it smiles, the 
trouble is but transitory, and once, when a heavy and 
utterly unexpected pecuniary loss came upon her, a 
loss that utterly changed her life, she dreamed of the 
tiniest infant with the face of an old usurer, who car- 
ried in his hand a bag of money — a ludicrous fact 
enough, but still a fact. 

The dreaming of prophetic dreams has not been 
given to me, though often I could think afterward that 
such and such a dream foreshadowed some event, usu- 
ally a sad one. 

I have had in that twilight of the senses, between the 
night of slumber and the day of perfect awakening, ex- 
periences that fully foretold sorrows close at hand : 
always sorrows, never joys — one of them too recent to 
write down here, in detail. I can only say that a face 
floated before me, and words were heard by me, which 
fully delineated an event which robbed my life of hap- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 55 

piness, and the tidings of which were brought to me 
almost as the vision passed, and that when I had no 
reason to apprehend calamity, but was waiting for the 
return of the dear one in perfect security. 

I have dreamed terrible dreams, which actually fright- 
ened me, but none of the incidents which occurred in 
them ever actually came to pass. Once, I remember, 
however, that I attended the reception of a bride. The 
presents were displayed in a room up-stairs, some of 
them on a marble-topped centre-table. That night I 
dreamed that I went to the same house and went up- 
stairs to the small room where I had looked at all those 
pretty gifts. As I entered, I saw a white rose lying on 
the bright-flowered Brussels carpet, and, stooping to 
pick it up, saw on the marble table, instead of the pretty 
trifles of silk and velvet that had covered it, a small 
coffin — then I awoke. But nothing happened to the 
bride or the groom. It was two years later, or nearly 
so, that I went to that house again to attend the funeral 
of a tiny infant. The person who stood at the door 
signified that I was to go up-stairs. I entered once 
more the little room I have spoken of, and the first 
thing that met my eye was a white rose lying on the 
gay carpet. It had fallen from the roses heaped upon 
the baby's coffin, which stood on the marble table, just 
as I had seen it in my dream. 

But why should such a thing have been foretold to me ? 
The house was the house of a person I liked, but was 
not particularly intimate with ; the brief life was in no 
way linked with mine. I was sorry for the mother, that 
was all. It was one of the sad things of the world, but 



56 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

why should /have dreamed of it two years previously? 

I know of several very singular dreams that surely 
"meant something," that did not come of the thoughts 
of the day. 

Yet even those that do " show how we may be per- 
ceptive of that which is not and never may be, render- 
ing it possible that we may be equally perceptive of 
that which shall be." 

MY SISTER'S DREAM. 

Amongst our most intimate friends were, and still 
are, the family of Mr. William B. Carlock. At the 
time of the story I am about to relate, there lived with 
them in their home a cousin of Mrs. Carlock's, named 
Caroline Grace, a very neat, mild, pleasant young lady, 
in somewhat delicate health, who was very nice to the 
children, and who had, I remember, the faculty of tell- 
ing the exact time at any moment without reference to 
a watch or clock. 

She could be awakened out of the soundest sleep to 
do this, and was always true to a second. 

One morning my sister Julia, then a very little girl, 
not more than five years old, came down to breakfast, 
very anxious to tell a dream that she had had. She 
thought it very amusing. She had dreamed that Mrs. 
Carlock was " buttering " the sheets that lay upon a bed 
in her house and saying " oh, how hot, poor Caroline ! " 

We children thought it a " funny dream," and mother 
made a remark to the effect that it was singular to 
dream of such a particular housekeeper as Mrs. Car- 
lock buttering the sheets of a bed. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 57 

No one thought seriously of the dream : we were in 
the habit of telling such dreams to each other as were 
comical — anything that would awaken a laugh. I be- 
lieve most children are. 

Nothing more was said about the dream that day, 
and by evening we had nearly forgotten it. We had 
gone out upon the door steps to look at something in 
the street, when we saw a woman coming toward us 
whom we knew to be often employed in Mrs. Carlock's 
family, as she had been in ours. She was a professional 
nurse, in fact, and was apt to arrive whenever the storks 
brought a new baby to either house. 

I remember her big bonnet, her full-skirted woolen 
dress and her large plaid shawl, as if it were yesterday. 
She seemed very weary and very low-spirited, and she 
sat down upon the steps and asked us to tell mother 
and grandmamma that she would like to see them a 
moment. This we did, and they came at once. Then 
she burst out with the words : 

" Oh, ladies, ladies! I've been at Mrs. Carlock's all 
day — Caroline Grace is burnt to death." 

Of course, we were all horror-stricken, and she went 
on to tell us that Miss Grace had risen very early, be- 
fore any one else was up, and gone down stairs. How 
she set herself on fire no one ever quite knew, but she 
was seen rushing about the garden in a light flame, all 
her garments blazing. In her agony and terror she 
fled from those who were trying to save her, into the 
house again, up stairs and down. At last Mr. Carlock 
caught her and enveloped her in a blanket, as he had 
been vainly endeavoring to do all the while. Her 



58 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

clothes were burnt off, and all that they could do was 
to pour oil upon her. 

At the time my sister was dreaming — for she awakened 
from the dream to come to breakfast — Mrs. Carlock was 
pouring oil upon a sheet with which they had covered 
the poor girl, and, no doubt, uttering ejaculations of 
pity, and the flesh of the sufferer, which had been 
roasted, was appreciably hot. 

Certainly the dream was a strange one. It was 
"■veridical," if ever dream was ; but why, since the child 
dreamed it, she was not aware that some one was 
burned — why she should only see Mrs. Carlock engaged 
in buttering bed-linen, I cannot imagine. In her dream 
the terrible tragedy was simply an amusing incident. 

A few years after this my sister dreamed that she 
saw Mrs. Jerome Thompson, the first wife of the artist, 
overset a kettle on her foot, and cry out that she was 
scalded. Nothing more — just that. A few weeks after- 
ward I saw Mrs. Thompson, and she told me that she 
had been laid up with a scalded foot. 

" I thought I must have a copper tea-kettle," she 
said, " and I bought a beauty, and was so proud of it ; 
now I hate it. 

" I went into the kitchen to warm my feet, and my 
skirt caught in the spout of the kettle as I turned away, 
and over it went." 

And then she told me how it scalded all the instep 
and kept her confined to the house for several weeks. 

I do not know whether the dream was dreamed at 
the time of the occurrence or not ; I never spoke of it 
to Mrs. Thompson. 



MY mother's dream. 59 

My dear mother once told me of a dream which cer- 
tainly was a singular one. She had retired in a very 
pleasant mood, and had not been conversing on any 
subject likely to occasion dismal dreams. 'Yet, in her 
sleep, she thought that she awakened, anxious and 
sorrowful, and that there was a sound in the room that 
she could not account for ; then a movement, and she 
thought that she saw that the window was open, and 
that two black figures stood there, leaning slightly out, 
as if interested in something in the street. Then she 
clearly perceived that these figures were those of men, 
clad in black, and had stern and solemn faces. They 
held wound about their hands the ends of ropes, with 
which they seemed to be striving to draw something up 
from below. 

With that quiet acceptance of astonishing things 
which is the peculiarity of dreams, she calmly inquired 
of the strangers — " who are you ? and what are you do- 
ing there ? " 

One of the men turned his head and looked at her. 

" We are drawing up the coffin/' he said. 

" Whose coffin ? " she asked. 

" That of Miss Betsy Palmer," he replied. At this 
instant she awoke, glad to find that she was only dream- 
ing, and soon slept again. 

The lady whose name had been mentioned was a 
dear friend, and one in whom my mother and grand- 
mother took a great interest. 

However, she had lately been heard of in perfect 
health, and there was no reason to feel any anxiety in 
regard to her safety. My mother attached no import- 



6o THE FREED SPIRIT. 

ance to the dream, and expected to hear shortly the 
usual interesting chat of daily pleasures or anxieties 
which Miss Palmer's correspondence always contained. 
But there were never to be any more of these pleasant 
letters. Shortly there arrived, from the old homestead 
in Long Island, one with the ominous black seal, that 
says so plainly, " I bring evil news/' It was written by 
a stranger, I believe, and told that she was dead. A 
fever had broken out in the place ; she had nursed sev- 
eral relatives, one a sister, and when this latter had 
breathed her last, Miss Betsy had simply said — " I am 
tired and must lie down." They found her dead. 

A neighbor's dream. 

Once, upon a time, there lived in our neighborhood a 
brilliant politician, who, however, was not to be held up 
to the world as a perfect example of good morals. 

Amongst other misdeeds, he staid out until the most 
unheard-of hours, and his wife had ceased to sit up for 
him, and regularly left him to his conscience and his 
latch-key. 

One night the whole block was aroused by the ring- 
ing and rapping of a policeman at the politician's door. 
Word had been brought that he was drowned. 

The poor woman was, naturally, in great grief, and to 
those who went to her in the hope of helping her, or, 
at least, of showing her their sympathy, she said that, 
when the policeman's knocks aroused her, she was 
dreaming that she saw her husband in a boat upon the 
water, in company with men and women, who wore upon 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 6 1 

their shoulders the heads of hideous beasts ; that they 
leaped about in the boat, and all went over together. 

The facts of the case were that he was in a boat 
filled with intoxicated men and women — brutes in hu- 
man shape — for the time being at least, and that some 
of them, in a spirit of drunken fun, wildly rocked the 
boat from side to side and overset it. 

The woman did not know that her husband was on 
the water, or anything whatever of his companions, and 
expected him to come home as usual when he felt in- 
clined to do so. 

THE PERSIAN RUG. 

I knew a lady who was, one day, much pleased to re- 
ceive, as a present, a very beautiful rug. She thought 
of it often, admired it immensely, and placed it in a 
conspicuous place in her parlor. 

One night she dreamed of it — the dream was this : 

Standing upon it, she looked down into a new-dug 
grave and saw her little boy, the pride of her heart, a 
healthy little creature, full of vitality and happy as the 
day was long, lying there, cold and dead. 

She awoke with a shriek, and from that moment 
could not endure the sight of the handsome rug, of 
which she had previously thought so much. Of course, 
I should not tell this story here if that were all. 

Three months later the child was taken ill and died. 

The day of the funeral was wretched, the ground 
damp, the mother ill, but she would stay with the little 
one to the last. 



62 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

After she was seated in the carriage, the person who 
supervised everything on the sad occasion, bethought 
him to get something that she might stand upon, and, 
going into the house, picked up this rug and had it 
taken to the place of interment. 

Thus it came to pass that, as the mother looked 
down upon the child's coffin, she became aware of the 
rug beneath her feet. 

It was as she had seen it, save that the coffin was 
now closed, and in her vision it was open. Crying out — 
" my dream has come true " — she fainted away in her 
husband's arms. 

THE FINDING OF THE LAST CANTOS OF THE 
" DIVINA COMEDIA." 

This is the story related by Boccaccio, of the finding 
of the last cantos of the " Divina Comedia " after the 
death of Dante : 

" And those friends he left behind him, his sons and 
disciples, having searched at many times and for 
several months everything of his writing to see whether 
he had left any conclusion to his work, could find in no 
wise any of the remaining cantos ; his friends generally 
being much mortified that God had not at least lent 
him so long to the world that he might have been able 
to complete the small remaining part of his work ; and 
having sought so long and never found it, they re- 
mained in despair. 

" Jacopo and Pietro were sons of Dante, and, each of 
them being rhymers, they were induced by the per- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 63 

suasions of their friends to endeavor to complete, as far 
as they were able, their father's work, in order that it 
should not remain imperfect ; when to Jacopo, who 
was more eager about it than his brother, there ap- 
peared a wonderful vision, which not only induced him 
to abandon such presumptuous folly, but showed him 
where the thirteen cantos were which were wanting to 
the * Divina Comedia,' and which they had not been 
able to find. 

" A worthy man of Ravenna, whose name was Pier 
Giardino, and who had long been Dante's disciple, 
grave in his manner and worthy of credit, relates 
that, on the eighth month after his master's death, 
there came to his house, before daw T n, Jacopo di Dante, 
who told him that that night, while he was asleep, his 
father, Dante, had appeared to him, clothed in the 
whitest garments, and his face resplendent with an ex- 
traordinary light ; that he, Jacopo, asked him if he 
lived, and that Dante replied, 'yes, but in the true 
life, not our light.' Then he, Jacopo, asked him if he 
had completed his work before passing into the true 
life, and, if he had done so, what had become of that 
part which was missing, which none of them had been 
able to find. To this Dante seemed to answer, ' yes, 
I finished it/ and then took him, Jacopo, by the hand, 
and led him into that chamber in which he, Dante, had 
been accustomed to sleep when he lived in this life, 
and touching one of the walls, he said : ' what you 
have sought for so much, is here ' ; and, at these words, 
both Dante and sleep fled from Jacopo at once. For 
which reason, Jacopo said he could not rest without 



64 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

coming to explain what he had seen to Pier Giardino, 
in order that they should go together and search out 
the place thus pointed out to him — which he retained 
excellently in his memory — and to see whether this had 
been pointed out by a true spirit or a false delusion. 
For which purpose, although it was still far in the 
night, they set off together, and went to the house in 
which Dante resided at the time of his death. 

" Having called up its present owner, he admitted 
them, and they went to the place thus pointed out ; 
there they found a blind fixed to the wall, as they had 
always been used to see it in past days. They lifted it 
up gently, when they found a little window in the 
wall, never before seen by any of them, nor did 
they even know it was there. In it they found several 
writings, all moldy from the dampness of the walls, 
and, had they remained there longer, in a little while 
they would have crumbled away. Having thoroughly 
cleaned away the mold, they found them to be the 
thirteen cantos that had been wanting to complete the 
'Comedia.'" 



65 



CHAPTER 7. 

GHOST STORIES. 

And now for a series of old-fashioned ghost stories. 

I believe every one of them. The people who told 
them to me were in perfect earnest, and you can read 
them, if you feel inclined, and come to your own con- 
clusions. About such things as these it is much better 
to write than to talk : it is much more satisfying to 
both parties. The reader can say — " now, what an 
idiot she must be to credit such a tale," or, to believe 
that she saw such and such a thing, without hurting 
the feelings of the writer ; and the writer can prose on 
without any injury to the reader, who can close the 
volume and need not "beat his breast," as did the 
wedding guest who was detained by the ancient mari- 
ner to hear a frightful story, when he wanted to feast 
and dance, and be merry. 

As intellectual food, ghost stories are "very filling." 
You can easily have a surfeit of them ; but I am sworn 
to tell all I know this time — I do not believe I shall 
ever do it again. 

I write them down for the motives I set forth in the 
first pages of this book, and for another. I want to 
convince myself if I can, that all these things are not 
phantasies of the brain, and I am firmer in my faith, I 
assure you, than I was when I wrote the first page. 



66 MR. blomgren's call. 

Before the custom of making calls on New Year's 
day had quite come to an end in New York, we were 
directing envelopes for our cards, during Christmas 
week, when some one noticed that we had forgotten 
our friend, Mr. Blomgren. We hastened to correct 
our omission, and fell to speaking of Mr. Blomgren as 
one we liked particularly. He was amiable and unas- 
suming, and had the most winning manners. In fact, 
he was a very fine specimen of the Swedish gentleman, 
and each of us had something pleasant to say of him, 
and we rejoiced that we had discovered our mistake in 
time for him to get his card, which we directed to his 
boarding place. 

New Year's day came, and, during the afternoon, Mr. 
Blomgren did not present himself. However, we had 
rather thought that he would come in the evening and 
were not surprised. 

It was about eight o'clock, I think, when one of us 
went up-stairs to put two little nieces, who were visiting 
us, to bed. 

The children were sound asleep, and their aunt was 
growing drowsy, when she became aware of a tall figure 
standing in the door-way, and, starting up, saw that it 
was Mr. Blomgren, and fancied that, as the room was 
sometimes used as a dressing-room at our receptions, 
he had supposed that this would be the case to-night. 

She arose and advanced toward him, saying words 
to the effect that every one was down stairs. He 
answered, without a smile — " I came because you sent 
me a card." 

"We are delighted to see you, Mr. Blomgren," she 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 6j 

replied ; " shall we go down?" But he was already 
gone, and she followed. 

As he was not to be found in any of the low T er rooms, 
and none of us had seen him, we decided that the mis- 
take he had made had mortified him and that he had 
gone away at once, and we were all very sorry. Yet, 
it was not like him to be so sensitive, he was too much 
a man of the world, and not by any means a boy — 
thirty years of age, probably. 

A few days after, a lady friend called, and one of us 
spoke of Mr. Blomgren. She had got so far as to say 
— " of course, we sent him cards" — when the visitor 
cried out : 

" Sent him cards ? — why, he had been dead a week or 
more on New Year's day." 

He died of pneumonia, after a brief illness, and, hav- 
ing no relatives here, he was taken to a hospital. 

I know that many people who knew him had no 
knowledge of his death until weeks after it occurred. 

It is only fair to say that the lady who saw him 
afterwards decided that she must have been asleep and 
dreamed it all — though, she declared, it resembled no 
other dream that she had ever had, and she was not 
conscious of any waking. 

A MISSISSIPPI PILOT'S STORY. 

The authority for the following story is a sensible 
and honorable man, now nearly ninety years of age. 
Were I to give his name, many old western men would 
recognize it at once, for he was a well-known pilot of 



68 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

the Ohio and Mississippi steamers in their most iiru 
portant days. However, at the present time, he objects 
to being supposed to be a believer in the supernatural, 
and it would be a breach of faith to be more explicit. 
The tale, as it is told to me, is this : 

In this gentleman's boyhood, he had the misfortune 
to lose a good and loving mother, and circumstances 
connected with his father's second marriage made his 
home unhappy. Consequently, he went to live with an 
uncle, where he did not find himself much happier. 
His material needs were never forgotten ; but no one 
showed him any tenderness — he was very lonely and 
desolate, and this fact was noticed by the wife of a 
neighbor, who felt great pity for the motherless youth. 
She manifested this in various gentle ways, and the lad 
was very grateful. In time, pity and gratitude grew to 
be affection : the woman felt as if she had gained 
another son ; the boy, as though he had found a 
second mother. Alas ! when he was about fourteen 
years of age, death once more robbed him of his 
dearest friend and counselor. The warm-hearted 
woman died, to the great grief of all who knew her 
and loved her, but on none did the blow fall more 
heavily than on the poor boy, who felt himself once 
more alone in the world. The funeral took place 
upon one sad autumn day, and the boy, who had, of 
course, attended it, went home with a swelling heart, 
longing only to find some lonely place in which to 
weep. But no one understood his sorrow, and he was 
at once harshly ordered to go and feed the cattle. 
With a bitter feeling of loss and desolation upon him, 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 69 

he took his way through the twilight to the barn where 
the hay was stored. 

The world looked as bleak and cold as though it 
knew the sun would never shine upon it again. All 
about him was gloomy : the withered grass, the bare 
branches, the old fences — no longer draped by the vines 
that covered them in summer — life seemed utterly with- 
out happiness, without friendship. Deeper and deeper 
grew his anguish ; with heavy steps he reached the old 
barn door and entered, and, for awhile, indulged in the 
natural expression of his emotions, then set about his 
task, and, as he groped for the hay, he heard a soft, 
rustling sound for which he could not account, and, ris- 
ing, with his arms full of hay, he looked toward the 
door. There, framed in the broad doorway, the fading 
light faintly illuminating her form, stood his kind, dead 
friend. No sheeted, shrouded figure, but apparently 
herself in her simple daily dress, looking well and 
happy. 

A light, from whence he knew not, illuminated her 
face, and she gave him the cheery smile with which she 
always welcomed him during her lifetime. 

There was nothing terrible in what he saw ; but, nev- 
ertheless, knowing that his good friend was dead, the 
boy was overcome with terror, and escaping from the 
barn by another door, fled to the house. It was days 
before he recovered from the shock this kindly vision 
gave him. 

I believe that if people were not encouraged to fear ap- 
paritions, we should know better what they mean, what 
they are. 



7C THE FREED SPIRIT. 

Why, if they actually are the disembodied spirits of 
those who were good and true on earth, should they be 
things to flee from ? We do not run from an old friend 
in a fresh dress. 

Later, the boy wished that this terror had not fallen 
upon him, and that he had spoken to his loving friend, 
who could only have come in kindness. For years 
he believed that he had experienced a supernatural 
visitation ; but, as he grew older, he came to consider 
it an hallucination, caused by his excited condition. 

The events narrated in the second tale occurred 
years afterward, when the young man had fairly entered 
upon his career as a pilot, and had been married two 
years. 

At that time the Ohio and Mississippi steamboats 
were the sole means of traffic and travel between the 
West and South. The journey to New Orleans was 
not, as it is now, a matter of a few days, but of several 
weeks. In the winter season, when ice blocked the up- 
per portions of the stream, it was often much longer, 
and there was no medium of communication between 
the traveler and his home. 

One day in early winter, the young pilot left Cincin- 
nati for New Orleans, hoping that the rivers would re-* 
main open for some time, and fully expecting to meet 
his beloved wife and little child again in a few weeks. 
Both were well when he kissed them adieu. 

The journey to New Orleans was made in an un- 
usually brief time, and the return trip was without in- 
cident, until the mouth of the Ohio was reached, when 
it was found impossible to proceed further, on account 



THE FREED SPIRIT. Jl 

of the ice with which the river was filled. Here the 
boat was detained several days, and, during that deten- 
tion, the young pilot dreamed a dream. 

He was at home again, but no one came to greet him. 
Wondering at this, he entered his door, and saw his 
wife lying in her coffin with her babe upon her bosom. 

The dream was so terribly vivid that he could not 
rest. He left the boat and hastened across the country 
to the nearest point where mail communication with 
his home could be had, and here he found a letter 
conveying the terrible information that his wife and 
child were both dead. His dream was true. 

He, however, takes a common-sense view of the 
matter, and believes that the dream was born of the 
anxiety of the detention and the longing to meet his 
dear ones once more. 

DR. F'S STORY. 

Dr. F., a well-known homoeopathic physician of New 
York City, once gave me an excellent ghost story. 
The occurrence was fresh at the time, and he told it 
as two young ladies had just told it to him, only with- 
holding their names. 

The two girls lived with their mother in a flat, rather 
up town. Their bed-room was next to that the older 
lady occupied, and it was their custom to leave the 
communicating door open, that she might call them in 
case of need. A light usually burned in their mother's 
room, especially if she were not very well. This was 
the case one night, and one of the girls, waking sud- 



J2 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

denly, lifted herself on her elbow and looked toward 
the door. To her astonishment, she saw sitting beside 
her mother's bed, and looking at her intently, a lady 
in Quaker dress, wearing the borderless net cap that 
used to be the head-gear of a " female Friend/' for the 
rest a gray dress and little shoulder-shawl. Fancying 
that her eyes deceived her, she touched her sister and 
whispered : 

" Look, do you see anything in mother's room ? " 
The sister instantly cried out : " Why, there is a Quaker 
lady there," and jumped out of bed. She saw the 
figure rise and glide toward the door ; then it was gone. 
The mother was sound asleep, 

The other girl, who had turned her face to the wall 
and shut her eyes, finally gained courage to rise and 
assist her sister in searching the room. The door, 
through which the figure had seemed to pass, was 
locked on the inside. There was no way by which any 
one could have entered. They knew that their mother's 
mother had been a Quakeress and always wore " the 
plain dress," and what they had heard of her appearance 
tallied with this that they had seen. They felt sure 
that their mother was about to die, and this really hap- 
pened in a few days : an event which was not, however, 
surprising, as she had been in ill health for some time. 

WHAT A MUSICIAN SAW. 

A well-known musical composer is responsible for 
what comes next. 

He was taking tea with some friends who had re- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 73 

cently moved to a new house, aud his chair was placed 
at the table in such a w T ay that he faced a door opening 
into a hall or passage. 

While they were all talking, he saw a young man 
standing at the door, looking at them. He turned 
away in a moment ; but the gentleman, who knew 
enough of the family to be sure that there w r as no such 
inmate of the house, yielded to an impluse that got the 
better of his decorum, sprang to his feet, looked out 
into the hall, and saw the young man pass through a 
door, which, if I am not mistaken, led down some cellar 
steps. 

Returning to table, he apologized for his conduct, 
and was told that they guessed what he had seen, that 
they often saw it, and were no longer alarmed or 
startled when it presented itself. 

My memory on the subject is accurate as to general 
facts, but not as to detail. I know that they saw this 
young man in the parlor, reading ; in the garden, and all 
over the house ; but whether they then knew of, or after- 
ward saw, a photograph of a gentleman who formerly 
lived there, and which resembled this apparition, I do 
not remember. 

At all events, as the tale ran, they did see one, and 
heard that its original died there very slowly and 
anxious to live. That he was peculiarly fond of the 
house, and that his invalid habits of lounging about, 
looking in at the doors, etc., etc., were those of this 
figure w 7 ith which they all grew familiar and which 
their guest saw plainly enough to describe. 

I believe in this case there was no vanishing : the 



74 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

figure walked in and out just as a living person might, 
and finally ceased to appear at all. 

It was generally supposed that a dislike to leave the 
world and an attraction for the house was the cause of 
this particular spirit's lingering. No tragedy was con- 
nected with his death, nor did he seem to come in an 
alarming fashion. He seemed so like a living person, 
that had there been any possibility of a deception being 
practised, those who saw him would have fancied that 
some one simply walked in and out to amuse himself. 

That is the way I remember the story, and, at all 
events, I am sure of the good faith of the narrator. 

THE GHOST IN THE BACK PARLOR. 

Now, whenever I make myself the heroine of a story 
in this book, I am on honor not to " embellish, " and 
to tell you, as far as I can, just what happened, without 
adding anything to make the story better, and I shall 
do it in this case. 

I wish some good spiritualist could explain the raison 
d'etre of the apparition which appeared to me in the 
back parlor of our home one evening. For an appari- 
tion it was, though it had nothing to do with me, and 
it came when the surroundings were entirely common- 
place. 

Going down to dinner in a pleasant mood, with noth- 
ing on one's mind to cause serious thoughts, is not a 
" condition " to invite spectres. Six o'clock is not the 
hour for them, but that was the time this shade elected 
to appear. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 75 

It was winter, and the gas was lit in my room, and 
out of doors it was quite dark. When the dinner-bell 
rang, I naturally went down-stairs. Every one else was 
already in the dining-room. I was the last to descend. 
As I passed through the lower hall, I noticed that the 
servant had neglected to light either the hall or the 
parlors, and went into the door of the front room 
for the purpose of getting a match. I found the box, 
and took out one match after the other, but they all 
seemed to be damp or defective and went out as I 
scraped them on the under side of the mantel-piece. 
The rooms were arranged as city parlors usually are ; 
the long front-room, the square back-room, both were 
utterly dark, the inside shutters were shut, the shades 
down, the curtains dropped. We had all been oc- 
cupied elsewhere and the room remained as it had 
bfeen when the house was closed the night before. 

There was not a gleam of light anywhere ; yet, at this 
moment, I was aware of something lighter than the 
darkness passing to and fro at the end of the back 
parlor. I might describe it as u something gray." 
When I first saw it, it was the height of a large girl or 
a short woman, and I thought it was one of my sisters, 
and said, calling her by name : " Won't you find a match 
for me ; these will not light ? " There was no answer. 
The figure now crossed the room again, seeming to be 
taller, and I said : " Who is that ? Won't you find a 
match, there are plenty on the table?" Again there 
was no answer, and again the figure crossed the room, 
and was as tall as a very tall man. 

" Oh," I said, thinking that I now knew who was there, 



j6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

and that the person was trying to frighten me. " That 
is you there in the dark. Light the drop lamp, please." 

The figure advanced toward the centre of the room, 
and a light began to glow. I saw a hand on a level 
with the globes of the chandelier ; from the palm, as 
though a match were held, not by the thumb and finger, 
but between the second and third with the fingers stiff, 
shone a blue light. It grew larger and looked like an 
electric light. I saw the globes of the chandelier and 
below them I saw a head. Slowly I became aware of 
a man with black hair, black side-whiskers and wearing 
evening dress, save that he had no collar on, no tie, but 
had a gold collar-button at his throat. I remarked the 
brilliant blackness of the cloth, and the peculiar jetty 
hue of the hair and whiskers ; but over the features, 
from forehead to chin, lay what looked like a wet and 
wrinkled piece of fine linen. I only saw the figure to 
the knees, where all ended in shadow. 

At this point, horror possessed me ; I shut my eyes 
and uttered a wild war-whoop, which brought every- 
body to the parlors at once. Search was made ; no 
stranger could have been in the house, the family were 
all at table, the cook in the kitchen, the other girl busy 
in the dining-room. 

I was laughed at, I laughed at myself and nothing 
came of my delusion or illusion. Certainly, it was no 
so-called "warning," no omen of ill to any of us, but I 
only utter the exact truth when I assure my reader 
that, a year later, as we were moving from the house, 
I mentioned what I called "the back-parlor ghost," to 
a neighbor, who said : 



THE FREED SPIRIT. jy 

" But, of course, you knew that a man hung himself 
in that room some years ago." 

I had not. At first I refused to believe the statement ; 
but it appears to have been so, though I never heard 
anything more than the simple fact that he hung him- 
self, fastening the rope to a hook in the ceiling. 

A HAUNTED MAN. 

What I am now about to write will strike many 
people as too absurd to be believed, and, yet, I assure 
them that it is positively true, if the serious statements 
of respectable and intelligent people, with no disposi- 
tion whatever to joke about anything, and who bear 
some of the weight of the affliction, are not to be set 
aside as valueless. 

It is, indeed, a very terrible story, and it has ruined 
one life and saddened others, and the end is not yet. 

It is now many years ago since a young gentleman, 
whom w r e will call "Y," attended one of the circles for 
spiritual manifestations that were then so common in 
Boston. The usual things happened, the tables tipped, 
raps were heard and messages spelled out. The youth 
was deeply interested, and, going home, full of the new 
idea, began to tell all that he had seen to his relatives. 

" 1*11 show you how they do it," he said, and gathered 
all the young people, nothing loth, about a table. 
There they sat, their hands spread out, their fingers 
touching, and nothing happened until the youngest — 
then but five years old — insisted on being taken into 
the circle. Then, indeed, the table began to tip, and, all 



78 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

being in serious earnest, it was certain that no volun- 
tary movement was made by any of the party. 

Not only did the table move, but raps were heard, 
and sounds like the falling of drops of water upon stone. 
I believe that words were spelled out that night, but 
certainly they were afterward, for the young people fell 
into the habit of forming circles every evening. Before 
long, they made at least one discovery — none of the 
phenomena occurred when the little child was absent ; 
his presence in the circle was necessary. Not a rap 
came ; not an inch did the table stir, unless he was 
present. 

It was plain that he was the medium, and, before 
long, the most serious things occurred in his presence. 
China was flung from the pantry shelves, books thrown 
from the table, sounds were heard like the beat of rain, 
or the falling of a shower of sand, and blows fell on the 
ceiling and walls, as though an unseen carpenter were 
hard at work. The child now began to declare that he 
saw things that the others did not see — spoke of the man, 
or the woman, who came into the room, who met him 
on the stairs. Friends and neighbors began to drop in 
to enjoy the mysterious happenings. The father of 
the family, a busy man, who was not aware for a time 
how far his young people were going, grew alarmed 
and forbade them to hold any more circles in his house. 
The young people of the Y family were obliged to obey, 
but others had houses — the circles were held elsewhere. 
The little boy went about with his brothers and sisters, 
and the phenomena which occurred in his presence 
grew more important. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 79 

The being who appeared to be behind the scenes in 
these circles, gave itself a name, and was shortly spoken 
of as — so and so — just as one of the circle might have 
been. 

It was continually promising to show itself, but de- 
clared that it could only do so in one place — the cellar 
of the residence which the Y family occupied — and it was 
resolved that, whenever the opportunity offered, this 
should be put to the test. Accordingly, when their 
parents were on one occasion obliged to leave home on 
business, the sons deliberately disobeyed their father, 
and invited the circle to meet again where it was 
originally formed. 

The little medium — let us call him " Robbie " — be- 
ing in their midst, all went swimmingly. Raps came 
in showers, and, being spelt out, commanded them to 
proceed to the cellar, make it perfectly dark, and 
watch until they saw him, for he would surely show 
himself. 

It was all fun to the young people, and to the cellar 
they went, closed a shutter through which the moonlight 
streamed, ranged themselves in a row, extinguished a 
light which they had brought and waited for the prom- 
ised manifestation. 

The child stood between two of his brothers, who 
each held one of his hands, and, suddenly, he cried — 
"see — look — there " — and now, not only he, but every 
one else, saw at the end of the cellar a little white mist, 
that grew momentarily thicker and whiter and appeared 
to be forming itself into a ball. At last it began to 
gleam and glitter — something like the moon when it 



80 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

peeps from between the clouds on a misty night, or, 
as one of the beholders describes it, like broken quick- 
silver — and a little later began to shape itself into 
something like a monstrous face. 

Just at this juncture, when all the beholders were 
growing nervous, little Robbie was suddenly lifted 
into the air and held in a horizontal position. He 
still clung to his brothers' hands, and screamed wildly 
to them to save him — but all their efforts were in vain : 
they could no more place him upon his feet or take 
him in their arms, than if some mighty giant had pre- 
vented them. The child appeared to be going into 
convulsions. The indescribable object at the end of 
the cellar looked more like a fiendish face than ever ; 
confusion reigned, the lamp was overset, but at last 
some one managed to find the window and flung open 
the shutter. The evening light, faint as it was, seemed 
to banish whatever it may have been that they looked 
upon. Little Robbie's feet came to the ground ; he 
clung sobbing to his older brother, who gathered him 
to his bosom and carried him up-stairs, and the 
thoroughly terrified party of young people dispersed 
to their separate homes. 

Little Robbie was very ill for weeks. The truth 
had to be told to the parents, and no more circles were 
held. In fact, they could not be, for the child could 
not now have been persuaded to take his place in one. 

However, from this time, he was for years followed 
by raps and strange sounds of all sorts. Glass would 
seem to be broken near him, stones to fall, feet to 
patter — some unseen thing followed him about the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 8 1 

house, and all the family, and every guest in the house, 
heard the sounds. Above all, the doors and windows 
of the room he occupied were opened continually by 
unseen hands. 

I forgot whether this state of things came to an end 
suddenly or slowly ; but, at all events, I believe that he 
was entirely delivered from the affliction by the time 
he was twelve years old. He attended school like 
other boys, he went to college, he studied medicine 
and began to practice. 

The very memory of those days when he was tor- 
mented, as we have described, was hateful to him. Had 
there not been so many witnesses to the phenomena, 
he might have been able to believe them all the result 
of some disorder of the brain ; but several sane and 
sensible people attested to all that had occurred, and 
all that he could do was to strive to forget the past. 

At last he married, and his life went on like that of 
other happy men for some years. Suddenly, however, 
a great woe befell him : his wife died. He grieved 
bitterly, but in time found solace in his profession, and 
passed most of his leisure in reading. He had been a 
widower, I think, about two years, when, one day, as he 
sat in his own room, reading something that demanded 
close attention, he was considerably annoyed by a pat- 
tering sound. It was as though a shower of gravel 
was falling close beside him. He looked up, but saw 
nothing. However, resuming his reading, the noise 
began again, with other sounds of a like nature, and 
with a horror passing all words, he understood that 
the affliction of his childhood was again upon him ; and 



82 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

this, indeed, was so. Only the demonstrations were 
even more powerful and unpleasant. At first they oc- 
curred only in his own home ; but soon they followed 
him to the houses of his patients, where noises, the 
origin of which could not be traced to any ordinary 
agency, occurred in the rooms of invalids, whose lives 
depended on perfect quiet. Chairs were overturned, 
tables jerked violently. A sofa, on which a sick man 
lay, was dragged into the centre of the room, as if by 
invisible hands. 

When the poor doctor, in despair, confessed that 
these manifestations were in some way caused by his 
presence — were the work of his familiar or attendant 
demon — those who could not deny that they occurred 
were afraid of him, and others thought him mad. He 
was obliged to give up his practice and take up his 
abode with friends, as one afflicted with some terrible 
disease might, hoping that time would effect a cure. 

But nothing of the kind has happened. On the con- 
trary, it is positively averred by those who live in the 
house with him that the noises follow him continually, 
and that, night after night, a sound like the beating of 
heavy sticks is kept up upon the headboard of his bed, 
or the walls of his room — a sound audible everywhere 
in the house. Heavy footsteps are heard on the floor, 
locked doors are opened — if there is a season of 
quiet at times, the disturbance is only the greater when 
it is renewed. And the man on whom this strange 
trouble has fallen — driven from the ranks of his pro- 
fession, overwhelmed with grief and shame — is dying 
of it, dying slowly and in agonies of horror. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 83 

Delicacy forbids me to use the name of the family 
in this instance; but it is one well known and much re- 
spected, and in no way does the gentleman, who seems 
to be pursued by a veritable fiend, seem to have merited 
the persecution — which fell at first upon an innocent 
child and has continued through the years of an in- 
dustrious and sober manhood. 



8 4 



CHAPTER 8. 

A COVINGTON APPARITION. 

A young man, who lived at the time in Covington, 
Ky., was standing at the door of his house one even- 
ing, when a lady in very deep mourning, with her veil 
over her face, came up the steps and inquired if his 
mother were at home. 

He said that she was, opened the parlor door and 
asked her to be seated. Then, closing the door again, 
he went out upon the steps, speaking to some one who 
went to call his mother, and never being, for one mo- 
ment, out of sight of the door of the parlor, which re- 
mained closed. Beside this, there was some one else 
on the door-step at the time. 

In a few moments his mother came down stairs and 
went into her parlor — instantly calling out, " why did 
you send for me ? there is no one here." And there 
was not. 

The parlor was a long one, occupying the whole of 
that side of the house. There was no other door in it 
but that by which the lady in black had entered. The 
windows remained closed, so that the idea that some 
one had taken pains to play a trick and climb out of 
them was untenable. No one could have passed the 
young man on the front door-step, and he not only saw 
the figure, remarked the depth of its mourning, and the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 85 

solemnity of its demeanor, but heard it speak and re- 
plied to it, and saw it seat itself as an ordinary caller 
might. 

A REPROACHFUL GHOST. 

A story vouched for by Mr. A. 

In common with many other men in New York City, 
Mr. A, who had lost his position in some public office, 
and consequently was anxious concerning the welfare 
of his family, was making every effort to find another. 

He had a wife and several children dependent upon 
him, and had no savings, and he naturally left no stone 
unturned in his efforts to place himself. He went 
everywhere where such abilities as he possessed were 
needed, wrote to every one who had any influence, and, 
finally, remembering that Mr. B — a friend whom he had 
obliged and who had promised to do anything in his 
power for him — employed several gentlemen in his 
office, went to him. 

Having stated his case, the friend ejaculated, " Why 
didn't you come to me a month ago ? I had exactly the 
place for you ; but I had no idea you wanted one, and 
gave it to young X, who was overjoyed to get it. He 
wants to marry, and this is the first good thing he has 
had." 

" And I am married and have a houseful of children," 
said the other, despondently. 

" Well, if I had had a hint from you, you should have 
had the place," said B ; "no one else could have come 
before you. To be sure, I haven't pledged myself to 



86 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

X ; I could dismiss him at once, but he will feel it very 
much/' 

" Well, he is a young man and has a mother's home 
to live in," said A ; " I would not try to oust another 
man, of course, but I'm at my last cent — I may be set 
into the street for all I know. A single man can do 
many things a married man cannot." 

" Til think it over, my dear fellow," said B ; "of 
course, my heart is with you, and if X gives me any ex- 
cuse for telling him that he is not the right man in the 
right place, I promise you that you shall hear from me 
at once." 

A then took his leave, feeling uncertain as to the re- 
sult, and sincerely hoping that X would give B the ex- 
cuse he desired for dismissing him. 

On Saturday night he had heard nothing ; the new 
month began on Monday, and on Sunday night he re- 
tired to bed, disconsolate. 

The family were sound asleep and the house closed. 
It was a nice flat, and the outer door was fastened, of 
course, as well as the door below. Therefore, when 
the wife was awakened by a knocking at the bedroom 
door, she was much astonished. 

Listening for a moment, she decided that she had 
been mistaken and composed herself to sleep again ; 
but the knocking was repeated and was louder than be- 
fore, and she touched her husband on the arm. Some 
one was certainly knocking at the inner door, which 
opened from the little private passage, though they 
knew that the door at the end of this had been fastened 
when they went to bed. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 87 

Filled with astonishment, Mr. A arose, put on a 
dressing-gown and slippers, and, going to the door, 
opened it cautiously. A lamp always burnt in the pas- 
sage all night, and by its light he saw the figure of a 
man standing before him. It advanced, and he saw 
that it was young X, pale as death, who fixed upon his 
face dull and despairing eyes, and said : 

" B will give you that place on Monday " — then was 
no longer there. 

A ran to the door — it was fastened ; he opened it and 
went down stairs ; he searched the rooms and found no- 
body there. At last, trembling with excitement, he re- 
turned to bed, and told his wife that X had come to 
tell him that B would give him his place on Monday, 
and that he looked as if his heart were broken. 

" At this time of night! why, how could he get to 
our door? " Mrs. A asked. 

That Mr. A could not explain, nor how X had got 
out of the passage, nor why he should come at all. 
Then he descanted on the paleness of the young man's 
face, the strangeness of his departure, and Mrs. A said, 
"my dear, you've evidently been dreaming." " But 
you heard the knock — you aroused me to open the 
door," A replied. Mrs. A, much troubled about her 
husband, fearful that his anxiety had unsettled his 
mind, coaxed him to stop talking and go to sleep, 
which he finally did. 

On Monday morning, as they were at breakfast, some 
one came in, a relative of Mrs. A's, who lived not far 
away. After the usual greetings, he said : 

" We had a tragedy in our street last night, a young 



88 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

man, who lives next door to us, shot himself — by the 
way, you know him, it was young X. He was engaged 
to a very pretty girl and has a mother who adored him. 
It will kill her, I think." Then he told this story : 

A month before, after no end of ill luck, young X 
secured a fine position in B's place, and had been in 
splendid spirits. His wedding day was set, and the 
mother, who happened to like her prospective daughter- 
in-law, was arranging the house for the reception of the 
bride. She fancied that X would come home in a par- 
ticularly pleasant mood on Saturday, for that happened 
to be the day on which he drew his first month's salary. 

As soon as she saw him enter the door, she knew 
that some unpleasant thing had happened. He kissed 
her and sat down for a moment, took some money from 
his pocket and asked her to put it away. 

"You are not ill, are you, my dear? " she asked, and 
he said : "No ; but it wouldn't matter if I were, I'm 
no good to myself or any one else. I've lost my place, 
mother." 

He was very gloomy that evening # and throughout 
Sunday. His mother tried to cheer him and encouraged 
him to hope that he would find as good a position very 
shortly. She fancied that he retired in a happier mood, 
and, before leaving her, he kissed her very fondly many 
times. But that night he shot himself through the 
head, and was dead before the poor mother could pro- 
cure assistance and open the door that he had locked 
on the inside. 

Just as the caller reached this point of his tale, the 
postman's whistle was heard, and Mrs, A. went to the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 89 

box and brought up a letter, which simply said : " The 
place is vacant ; come on Monday. 

B " 

For a moment A felt that nothing could make him 
take the position. But his wife and children sat before 
him, and there was no other prospect ; he was, at the 
time the story was told to me, in B's office. 

As for poor, young X, he lies in his early grave, his 
betrothed wife mourning him as young love mourns, 
and his old mother's heart is broken. 

A SORROWFUL GHOST. 

I am indebted for the following story to my friend, 
Miss . 

About ten years ago, Mrs. B, of New Jersey, having 
been left a widow, found herself with an income in- 
sufficient for the support of her children. Consult- 
ing with her friends, they advised her to try taking 
boarders, and assisted her to secure a large boarding- 
house, whose proprietor was about to retire from 
business. 

It was a handsome house and already full of boarders. 
Mrs. B had fine business talent and a charming man- 
ner, became a great favorite and prospered exceedingly. 

When she took possession of the house, but one 
room was empty, a large, elegant and well-furnished 
apartment on the second floor. For this she soon found 
an occu'pant, who was at first delighted with it, but 
shortly became dissatisfied. What he did not like, he 
could not say ; but if Mrs. B would put him in any 



90 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

other room in the house, he would be truly grateful. 

A young couple, whose room was far less desirable, 
gladly made the exchange, and they in their turn soon 
begged to be placed elsewhere, and could give no 
reason. 

Several other people tried the room, were delighted 
with it at first, and soon followed suit by begging to be 
placed anywhere else, and finally Mrs. B offered the 
discontented one the room she had given to her three 
boys, and gave the urchins this large and beautiful 
apartment. " Wasted it on them/' as she said, laugh- 
ingly, for it was really the best room in the house, and 
very attractive to strangers. 

Two of the children were very small ; the oldest was 
a boy of fourteen. For a time they seemed to enjoy 
their new quarters, but finally the youngest began to 
complain that he disliked the room. He did it so often 
and with so much energy, that his mother finally ques- 
tioned him closely. 

" Why don't you like that pretty room, darling ?" 
she asked. 

"I do' no," the child replied. He was yet too young 
to express his ideas. " I don't yike it." 

" But why ? " she persisted. 

" I don't seep nice," he answered, whimpering. " He 
wakes me up evly time." 

" Who does, your brother ? " the mother asked. 

" I do' no," the child replied again. " I don't want 
to seep in dat room." 

Mrs. B made some change in the arrangements of 
the beds and heard no more complaints for several 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 91 

days ; but, at last, in the middle of one quiet night, Mrs. 
B and her daughter were suddenly awakened by a 
tumultuous rapping upon her door and the voice of the 
oldest boy, crying : " Let us in, ma ; let us in ! " 

Mrs. B opened the door at once, and in rushed the 
three boys, all pale with terror, the youngest clinging 
to the oldest brother. 

" Well, now, children, what does this mean ? " asked 
the aggravated matron. The oldest boy gazed re- 
proachfully at her and said : 

" We can't sleep, that is what it means. We haven't 
slept since we went into that room. If I tell you why, 
you'll think I want to frighten you, or else that I'm 
crazy." 

" Well, I will tell, ma," said the second boy. " There's 
a fellow there." 

" A fellow ? " asked the mother. 

" Yes," said the little boy. "He goes all around in 
the dark, and he shakes things and rattles things, and 
we tried to catch him, but we can't. He is there, for 
we hear him, but we can't see him." 

"What folly!" said the mother. "No one could 
come into your room. Don't you lock your door ? " 

" He comes, and locking does not keep him out," 
said the boy. " And we are going to give that fellow 
the room to himself ; we can't stand him." 

" What fanciful children," said the mother. 

" It's not fancy, ma," said the oldest boy. " It's just 
as brother says." 

" Ess ; " cried the baby, " he fwightens me. I don't 
yike dat room." 



92 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

The children were disposed of elsewhere, charged to 
say nothing of their experience, and the objectionable 
room, after being carefully arranged, was locked up and 
left to itself. 

Mrs. B considered her boarders whimsical, laughed 
at her boys for their folly, and naturally kept the story 
to herself. A ghost is not popular in a boarding-house, 
and the fancy that some living person could gain access 
to the sleeping apartments at midnight would be even 
less so. 

It was a sunshiny summer afternoon when Miss 

Anna H , a girl in her teens — arrived at Mrs. B's 

house to pay a visit of a few days. She knew nothing 
of the experience of the children, nor of the curious 
dislike that the boarders had exhibited for the hand- 
somest room in the house. 

She was in excellent health, never nervous, and of a 
cheerful disposition. The whole family inherit from 
their mother solid common-sense and admirably strong 
minds. They are very brave women, and not in the 
least superstitious, and are inclined to investigate what- 
ever seems remarkable. Even at that early age, Miss 
Anna was not a girl to be frightened by odd noises, or 
" something white in the corner. ,, 

There was no talk of the room until bedtime, when 
Mrs. B said that she was glad to have one of the 
pleasantest apartments vacant, ushered Miss Anna up- 
stairs, kissed her good night, and left her alone. 

On this night the young lady was sleepy and tired, 
and having locked her door and said her prayers, 
hastened to bed and found herself almost at once in 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 93 

slumberland. She was an unusually sound sleeper, and 
it was not common for her to open her eyes until morn- 
ing. However, that night, to her great surprise, she 
continually started awake, and always fancied that the 
cause was some curious noise directly in the room. 

However, there was nothing there to make one, and 
finally, as day broke, the disturbance ceased and she 
slept soundly as usual. 

She said nothing of her restlessness, passed a pleas- 
ant day and evening, and retired to her room at eleven 
o'clock. 

She had not slept more than half an hour, when the 
apparent presence of some one in the room aroused 
her. She had fastened her door and knew that there 
could be no one there ; but having passed one wakeful 
night, she was annoyed at the thought of enduring 
another, and wondered what it was that produced so 
singular an effect, for the sound was like some one 
moving cautiously about. The room was dark, and the 
young lady felt that it was best to remain where she 
was ; but sleep having been completely driven away, 
she sat up in bed and listened intently. 

Just then the town clock struck twelve — the proper 
hour for spectres — and the sound of some one sighing, 
sobbing, lamenting under his breath, came to her ear. 

The slats of the blind shutters began to move slowly, 
opening and shutting at regular intervals, as they do 
when they are fingered by people who are peeping out, 
and a rocking-chair near the window began to sway 
slowly to and fro, with a creak for every motion. The 
effect produced was that of a man rocking and bemoan- 



94 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

ing himself. It was not a woman's voice, but that of a 
man perfectly overwhelmed with sorrow. 

No form was visible, not so much as a shadow. 
When the slat was opened, the lights in the street made 
every object dimly visible. After rocking and sobbing 
for awhile, the unseen form seemed to leave the chair 
and began to pace the room, touching the foot-board 
as he passed and still lamenting. Again he sat in the 
chair. The bed shook violently when the unseen 
spectre touched it, and Miss Anna dreamed nothing of 
this, for she remained sitting up, broad awake, until 
daylight, watching and noting every sound from the 
striking of the midnight hour. 

As day broke, the chair stopped rocking, the shutter 
slats ceased to move, the feet no longer trod the floor, 
nor were there any more sighs or sobs or lamenta- 
tions. 

Miss Anna, feeling assured of this, breathed a weary 
sigh and endeavored to compose herself to sleep, but 
in vain. She was not frightened, but felt as one who 
had been obliged for hours to contemplate the utter 
misery of another, without being able to alleviate it. 
She was simply worn out, and resolved on no account 
to spend another night in that room. 

At the proper time that morning, she told her hostess 
of her resolution to shorten her visit, and, since it was 
necessary to excuse herself, told the tale. 

On this, Mrs. B, after an attempt to laugh at the 
" ghostly visitation,'' confided to Miss Anna the pre- 
vious history of the room and the tale her boys had 
told. During the conversation, a caller was ushered in. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 95 

She was an old resident of the place and one who had 
formerly boarded in that house. 

In her excitement, Mrs. B lost her reticence, and told 
the story over again to her friend, who, after hearing 
the narrative, said : 

" I suppose you know that poor young Mr. J occu- 
pied that room? " 

" Who was young Mr. J ? " asked Mrs. B. " I never 
heard of him." 

" He was a very fine young man, who boarded here," 
the lady answered. " The girl to whom he was 
engaged died suddenly, about Christmas time. All 
the night before Christmas he was heard moving about 
his room, sighing and weeping, and as day broke on 
Christmas morning, he left the house, went to the D. 
graveyard, and there shot himself/' 

POOR HANNAH PENNY. 

In a small town in Long Island, there lived at one 
time a gentleman, who, though he had a wife and 
several children, was not blind to the charms of a 
pretty servant maid named Hannah Penny. Particu- 
lars are superfluous, suffice it to say that the poor girl 
one day hung herself, leaving a letter which explained 
why life had grown to be too heavy a burden for her. 

The gentleman's wife and children were in New York 
at the time, and at first the injured wife thought that 
nothing could induce her to forgive her husband. 
However, a good woman will not readily separate her- 
self from the father of her children. 



g6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

The sinner was penitent, poor Hannah was in her 
grave, and finally the lady returned to her home. The 
little ones were told that Hannah was dead, but knew no 
more. 

The house was a large one, with a fine garret, where 
the children always played on rainy days, and thither 
they went as usual one stormy morning. When they 
came down to dinner, one of them, a little girl, said to 
her mother — "that wasn't true about Hannah Penny 
being dead, was it ? " 

The mother managed to falter : " Yes, dear ; Hannah 
is certainly dead — do not talk of her/' 

But the younger girl called out : 

" Oh — she isn't dead, mamma ; truly, she isn't ; she has 
been playing with us all the morning." The little boy 
added his word — " oh, yes ; she came out of the long 
wardrobe and she played, only she wouldn't talk." 

" Not a word," said his sister ; " only shook her head 
and smiled." The other girl corroborated this state- 
ment, and said : " I suppose she has a cold and is too 
hoarse." 

The children then added that after a while she went 
into the wardrobe again. 

There was no stopping their little tongues ; a new 
servant, who was in the room, repeated the story. My 
informant lived in the neighborhood at the time, and 
was aware of the excitement it caused in the neighbor- 
hood, and knew also that the innocent little ones con- 
stantly declared that, whenever they went to the garret, 
Hannah Penny came out of the wardrobe. She did 
not always play — sometimes she only looked at them. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 97 

The servants questioned them constantly, and they 
could describe her dress and tell how her hair was ar- 
ranged, and the statements coincided accurately. 

Hannah had been their nursery maid, and they were 
fond of her, and though she seemed to have grown 
dumb, were delighted to have her again after having 
mourned her as lost ; but their innocent prattle aroused 
so much curiosity and so revived the tale of sin and 
horror, that neither the guilty man nor his injured wife 
could endure it. They left the place for ever and the 
house was sold to strangers, who occupied it in peace, 
seeing nothing of poor Hannah Penny, w T ho had never 
appeared as an avenging spirit, but only with loving 
smiles and gentle glances for the innocent little chil- 
dren who had always loved her and with whom she had 
frolicked as though she had been a child herself. In- 
deed, she was little more in years, though she had had 
a woman's sad experience. 

THE TWINS. 

An officer of the Seventy-first Regiment, during war 
time, and now a very practical business man, told me 
that in his childhood he had had a most curious ex- 
perience. 

He had little twin brothers, with whom he was very 
fond of playing. He used to sit on the floor with them 
and throw pillows at them, and they, as well as they 
could, at him. He used to have all sorts of romps, in 
which pillows played a part, with the little ones, and 
they were very happy together. 



98 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

But, alas ! — one day one of the twins fell ill, and in a 
short time died. The remaining twin was unhappy 
without him. The larger boy grieved deeply and for 
some time romps were suspended. However, at last, 
the two children began their games again, and one day 
the little boy had just rolled the baby over on the pil- 
low, while it crowed with glee, when he saw standing, 
close beside it, the other twin, exactly as he was in life, 
as solid and palpable to all appearances as his brother ; 
but as the elder child sprang toward it, it vanished. 

A servant — an old nurse, I believe — interpreted this 
vision to mean that the child had " come for its 
brother," and in two weeks the little creature was also 
"on the other side." 

A PRETTY STORY OF HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 

According to a pretty story, there is a poor woman in 
a Western State, who believes that she has seen the 
spirit of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson, the well-known 
authoress. 

She was one of this lady's many proteges, though 
she had never seen her. Mrs. Jackson had been told 
that the poor woman was in need of clothing for a new- 
born babe, and, though unable to leave her room, had 
the garments her own little one had once worn col- 
lected and sent to her, with such a gentle message as 
one mother might send to another in such an hour. 

Before the recipient of this kindness was able to call 
on Mrs. Jackson, in order to thank her in person, that 
lady died. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 99 

Not long after, the poor woman, having just bathed 
and dressed her child, was holding it up before her and 
admiring it, as mothers do, when suddenly a warm im- 
pulse of gratitude filled her heart, and she said aloud : 

" Oh, baby, if only the dear, good lady that gave 
you those pretty clothes could see you now ! " and was 
aware of a presence near her, and, looking up, saw, as 
she said, the loveliest lady she ever looked upon, stand- 
ing near her. The stranger smiled and was gone. No 
living person had entered the room, she was assured, 
and she was certain in her own mind that she had seen 
the spirit of her benefactress. 

Those who knew Mrs. Jackson say that she drew a 
perfect picture of her as she was in life, in describing 
the face and figure that she had looked upon. 



IOO 



CHAPTER 9. 

NURSE KIRKPATRICK'S STORIES. 

Nurse Kirkpatrick died long ago. Besides, were she 
living, she would be very proud of being " put into a 
book," and would have no objection to proclaiming her 
experiences from the house-top. 

She was an elderly woman, who always appeared at 
our house at the same time that a new baby arrived 
there — and, as it was the general opinion of the wee- 
folk of the family that the angels had entrusted the 
new-comer to her care, and that she brought it in her 
large traveling-basket, she was regarded by us with awe 
and admiration. 

She was, as her name indicates, Irish by birth, and 
very fond of talking, and scarcely ever did she enter 
the kitchen to make catnip-tea for the baby, or concoct 
gruel or panada, without telling some marvelous story. 

As I was always at her heels, I heard everything, and 
I wish I could remember all I listened to. 

Since those old French romances — " Cinderella " — 
" Prince Sincere " — " Riquet with the Tuft " — " Puss in 
Boots " — " Graciosa and Percinet " — you know the set, 
old as our great-grandmothers — were written and 
translated, no one has given children a real fairy-tale. 

Those who have attempted to cater to the universal 
longing of all generations, have been so deeply im- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 101 

pressed with the fact that they were writing nonsense, 
that they have either felt obliged to make their stories 
allegorical, to wind up with a moral, or, in some other 
cruel way, to disappoint the little readers, who want 
the bad fairy and the good — the pumpkin that turns 
into a chariot, the invisible cap, the purse of Fortuna- 
tus, the seven league boots, the ring that had but to be 
rubbed to bring superhuman aid to its possessor — and 
all the other occult mysteries which they accept with- 
out a question. 

A fairy story, told by one who believes it solemnly, 
is, therefore, a delightful thing to listen to — and this 
Irish woman had no more doubt as to the truth of her 
tales of fairy-wells and fairy-rings — of the little fairy- 
cobbler, who prays the shoemaker to help him mend 
the slipper of the fairy-queen, and, if the act of kind- 
ness is done readily, rewards the cobbler with more 
money than he ever saw before in all his life ; of the 
fairy-baker who has broken his peel and makes the 
amiable person who cuts him a new one, a rich man for 
life ; of the girl who goes to peep at the good-people 
dancing at midnight, and is carried away into the hills, 
whence she returns, still young and blooming, when 
her school-mates are old men and women ; of the 
changeling, deformed and miserable, left in the cradle of 
the smiling pet of the household, who has been spirited 
away to Elfin-land, than of her own existence. 

That story about George Washington and his little 
hatchet never appeared so profoundly true to me as 
did these narratives. 

But Mrs. Kirkpatrick told other things, that made 



102 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

black Sally Ann, as she declared, "turn all goose- 
flesh, " as she listened. 

That of Beesy's sweetheart was very touching. 

Beesy was Mrs. Kirkpatrick's intimate friend, when 
she was a young girl, still " living on the ould sod," 
and Beesy had a sweetheart named Johnnie, and he, 
like Jamie in the ballad of "auld Robin Grey" — "sav- 
ing a croon piece, had naething left beside" — and "to 
make the croon a pound," made up his mind to seek 
his fortune in America. 

"And at that time," Mrs. Kirkpatrick declared, 
" they thought goold was to be had in New York for 
the stooping to pick it up out of the strates." 

With hopes akin to this, Johnnie kissed his Beesy, 
halved a broken sixpence with her, and went away, 
promising to come back " the minute he was rich, and 
marry her that day." 

And, after awhile, one letter came, saying that he 
" had an illigant place," and Beesy was happy for 
awhile, and sent her answer and waited for more news 
from Johnnie. But none came, and Beesy grew pale 
and thin and spent her nights in tears, and at last con- 
fided to her friend that she feared Johnnie was false to 
her. 

One evening, work being over, the two girls walked 
out together after dark — and Beesy grew quite desper- 
ate, and Maggie was trying to comfort her, pacing up 
and down a long hedgerow — with only the stars over- 
head, and all as still as if they were alone in the world, 
and neither able to see the other's face ; but at last, the 
moon began to rise — a full-moon, big and yellow, and 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 103 

one side of the hedge was flooded with light, so that 
every leaf and every thorn was visible. And, all in a 
moment, Maggie saw Johnnie standing there, close up 
against the dark foliage. 

He wore the gray clothes she had last seen him in, 
but no hat upon his head — and there was a yearning 
look in his eyes, and his arms were stretched toward 
his sweetheart. 

" Now, glory be to God ! — there's Johnnie himself 
come back and waiting to suprise ye ! " cried Maggie — 
and Beesy turned and saw him and screamed out — 
" oh, my Johnnie ! my darling Johnnie ! do I live to see 
you again ! " and rushed to cast herself into her lover's 
arms. But alas ! no fond kisses, no warm embraces 
were to be hers — her hand only clasped the dark leaves 
of the moonlit hedge, while its thorns wounded her 
bosom — Johnnie was no longer there. 

Then the poor girl cast herself upon the sod, and 
burst out wailing and weeping, crying that Johnnie v/as 
surely dead and that it was his wraith that they had 
seen. But Maggie would not believe it, and went run- 
ning about, calling to Johnnie to show himself and to 
come to Beesy before she died of fright — berating him 
for playing such a joke. 

" For it was like no ghost," she used to say, "but 
for all the world Johnnie himself, with his gray clothes 
upon him and his pipe sticking out of his pocket." 

However, all the calling and crying produced no re- 
sult, and at last Beesy was induced to go home — where 
Maggie felt sure she would find Johnnie waiting for her. 

Sad to tell, this was not so, and a little later there 



104 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

came a letter to Beesy from one of the " Sister " nurses 
in a hospital, to tell her that Johnnie was no more. He 
had sent his love, and the other half of the sixpence, 
and the few little things that he possessed, to Beesy, 
and spoke of her at the last. 

" And sure it was Johnnie stood in the hedge that 
night," said nurse Kirkpatrick, " and no man else. I 
knew him too well to make a mistake in him." 

Another of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's stories was more re- 
cent. It was about some one she called little Willie. 
He was the child of the people who lived in the house 
next door to the one she occupied. 

He was a winning baby, just able to walk, and she 
was very fond of him, and often had him brought in to 
her. Indeed, small as he was, he could manage to get 
to the house himself — crawling down one set of door- 
steps and up the other with amusing dexterity, and 
bumping against the door-panels until he was admitted. 

One evening she had been away from home for a 
week or so, and on her return was greeted by the news 
that little Willie had been very sick. She was very 
sorry to hear this and inquired particulars. The woman 
who lived down stairs was quite ready to give them, 
and stood leaning on the balustrades as she talked, 
while Mrs. Kirkpatrick, being weary, sat down on the 
lower steps of the stairs to listen. 

She had just said, that as soon as she had taken 
something to eat, she would go in and see the child, 
when she beheld him enter the passage — not coming in 
at the door, but, as she said, "through the wall." He 
was in his night-gown and his feet were bare. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 105 

Petrified with astonishment, she could neither move 
nor speak, and before she could regain her voice, the 
other woman turned and saw the child. 

" Bless us ! " she cried. " Why, here is Willie — and 
with no shoes on his feet. What ails the woman to let 
him get away, and him just past the croup." 

She stooped to take the child in her arms, but he 
was no longer there, and the hands of those who came 
to tell the news of his death were beating on the door. 



Strange to say, these stories never frightened, but 
only interested me, and I never doubted any of them. 

HOW A SPIRIT SAT FOR ITS PHOTOGRAPH. 

Once, upon a time, a gentleman who lived in St. Louis 
was happy enough to have a good and beautiful wife, 
whom he loved fondly. 

However, while she was yet a young woman, she 
died, and he was left desolate. 

After his first grief was a little softened, he began to 
regret very bitterly that he had no portrait of her. 
The fine picture by some famous artist, which they 
had decided to have painted in Paris, would now never 
exist, and his lost wife had always refused to sit for her 
photograph. 

The poorest representation of her features would 
have been valuable to him now, and he blamed himself 
for not having urged her to have one taken. 



106 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

One night, when he had fallen asleep thinking of this 
matter, he dreamed that a hand touched his, that he 
opened his eyes and saw his wife sitting beside him, 
dressed in a very beautiful white lace dress, which he 
greatly admired. She smiled and leaned across the 
pillow to kiss him : 

" I should have done what you asked, my dear," she 
said. " I am sorry now, because you fret over it ; but 
I have done what I could to please you. You will find 
my photograph in New Orleans ; I sat for it to-day — I 
wore this dress." 

She kissed him again and he awoke. 

He was much agitated and moved to the point of 
shedding tears ; but as he knew that his wife had not 
visited New Orleans since her childhood, though she 
was born there, merely supposed that the dream was 
the natural result of his thoughts. However, a few 
weeks later, he dreamed' the same thing again, and this 
time heard his wife mention the street in which he 
would find her portrait. 

" I have been trying in vain to make you dream of 
me, for nights," she said. And he thought he answered : 
" But I do dream of you very often." " Yes, in the 
dreams of sleep," she replied. "But this is a vision, a 
dream of the soul. It is I, myself, who tell you to go 

and get my picture, which you will find in street, 

in the city of New Orleans." 

Again he awoke, this time much impressed ; but as 
he believed that he knew that there was no portrait of 
his wife in existence, had no thought of going to New 
Orleans, or anywhere else, to find one. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 07 

Time passed on — his wife had been dead more than 
two years — when again he dreamed the same dream. 
This time he was awake, or believed himself to be so, 
and he took his wife's hands and held them. 

" Dearest, I shall not come again/' she whispered. 
"You will come to me one day, but never shall I return 
to you. If you want my portrait, you will find it where 
I have told you that it is." This time the hands 
seemed to melt in his ; he saw the figure fade and be- 
lieved that his wife's spirit had visited him. The next 
day he was on his way to New Orleans, and, on arriv- 
ing, turned his steps toward the street mentioned. As 
he walked slowly along, a photographer's show-case 
caught his eye, and from it his wife smiled upon him 
in % all the beauty of her prime. There could be no 
mistaking the fact. Besides, she wore the white even- 
ing-dress he knew so well, trimmed with lace of a pecu- 
liar pattern, and on her throat a necklace which he 
had had made to order for her. 

He stood gazing upon it for a long while ; then 
hastened up-stairs and questioned the photographer. 
The result was that in a little while they were exchang- 
ing confidences. 

The widower had told his dream ; the photographer 
had narrated his experience — it was this : 

Some time before, he had fallen asleep in his studio, 
and had awakened to find that a lady had posed her- 
self for a sitting. 

She was dressed in white, and as if for the evening ; 
but he fancied that she had left her wraps in the dress- 
ing-room. 



108 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

Starting to his feet, he apologized, and felt that a 
conversation must have ensued ; for, afterward, he re- 
membered the size desired, and that the lady had said 
that her husband would come for the pictures ; but he 
was sure that he must have been curiously confused, 
for he never could think just how all this was said, 
and sometimes fancied that not a word w r as spoken. 

Also, he was unable to say when the lady left the 
studio. He waited for some time for her to return 
from the dressing-room, and was surprised when the 
young woman in attendance declared that no lady 
dressed in white had been there that day. 

However, he finished the pictures, had a crayon head 
made and framed, and, coming to the conclusion that 
the lady who posed so well was an actress, took special 
pains that the work should be perfect. At last, how- 
ever, he decided that all this had been in vain ; that no 
one would ever come for the pictures, and placed the 
large crayon portrait in his show-case. 

The picture had been taken about a year before. 
The lady had been dead more than two years, and had 
never been in New Orleans since she was five years 
old ; but the husband not only paid for the photographs 
and the crayon head, but subsequently sent the pho- 
tographer a check for a large amount. 

Not half the value, he declared, of his inestimable 
treasure. People have tried to explain this story in 
several ways, but those most interested have always 
believed that, for once, at least, a spirit returned to 
earth to sit for its portrait. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. IO9 

Another photographer, having taken a portrait of a 
baby, whose mother died at its birth, found behind 
the little bald head the face of a young woman, which 
was declared by those who had known her to be a 
perfect likeness of the child's mother. 

He was greatly excited and deeply interested at the 
time, for he was sure that the plate was entirely clean 
and new. But, though he made many experiments 
afterward, he never had any other experience of the 
same sort. 

THE STORY OF A WATCH. 

The German family, who declare that this story is 
true, told it to one, who told it to me, twenty years 
ago. 

The watch was then in their possession, and was a 
heavy, old-fashioned object, in a curiously engraved, 
double gold case. It had then recently been brought 
from Frankfort, and was worn by the oldest son of the 
gentleman of whom the incidents below are related. 

This person, a physician of high standing and be- 
nevolent disposition, having discovered, in the poorest 
quarter of the town, an aged and well-educated old 
man, suffering from a disease that was inevitably mortal, 
caused him to be brought to his home, and there had 
him nursed and cared for as though he had been his 
own father. 

The invalid was very grateful, and before he died, 
said to the physician : " When I am gone, I want you 
to keep and wear my watch ; it is more valuable than 



IIO THE FREED SPIRIT. 

it appears. It will stop with my last breath, and 
should it begin to tick again, you will know that I have 
once more begun to breathe. Watch it, therefore, for 
some space of time, that I may not be interred pre- 
maturely. 

" When it has been silent for a month, put it into your 
own pocket. In a few hours it will begin to go again. 
From that moment no other must wear it. It will be 
a sort of guardian angel to you. While it ticks regu- 
larly, you need fear nothing. When it begins to tick 
very rapidly, danger threatens you. If you are about 
to take a journey, and are thus warned, remain at home ; 
if while you are in the street, remain where you are 
until the sound is normal, or return home. Never take 
it to a watch-maker ; it needs no regulation. It will not 
stop until your breath does. 

" I cannot tell you why, but it has been so, and it 
will be so, and you will soon believe it." 

The physician naturally believed that there was 
nothing in all this. The superstition that a man's 
watch often stops when he dies, without any per- 
ceptible reason, was familiar to him ; but he listened 
gravely, promised to do as the invalid asked, and 
thanked him for the bequest. 

However, the man lived many months longer, and 
died very quietly at last. He was found lying as though 
asleep, and the watch in the pocket of his night-robe 
had certainly stopped, though it had not run down. 

The physician was, at least, sufficiently startled to 
respect the old gentleman's wishes in regard to the 
watch ; but it remained silent, and at the end of the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. Ill 

month he placed it in his own pocket. Exactly as the 
donor had said, he had not worn it twenty-four hours 
before it began to tick again. 

From that moment it continued to keep perfect time. 

About three years from the day on which he first 
became its owner, it had given three manifestations of 
its peculiar power. 

I do not know the particulars, save that by stopping 
in the street while the wild ticking of the watch con- 
tinued, the doctor was saved from passing an old wall 
which fell just at the time when he would have been 
beneath it had he continued his walk ; that the same 
wild ticking caused him to return home in time to save 
the life of one of his family, who needed instant atten- 
tion ; and that, obeying its warning, he did not enter a 
railway train, in which, an hour after, many passengers 
met a fearful fate. 

But, by this time, not even the original possessor of 
the watch felt a greater confidence in it as a sort of 
mechanical guardian angel. 

The doctor's wife also believed in it implicitly, and 
would not, on any account, have allowed him to leave 
the house without it, had she been aware of the fact. 

One day, however, the hasty change of a waistcoat 
caused this to happen. The fact was discovered by the 
lady, and shortly, to her horror, she heard the watch 
begin to tick madly ; then, to stop suddenly, with a sort 
of crash. The terror that this caused her was f$o great 
that she was prepared for anything, and was not aston- 
ished w T hen her husband was shortly after brought home 
unconscious — his horse having taken fright at some- 



112 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

thing and overturned the carriage. He did not rally, 
and finally the physicians pronounced him dead. 

The usual solemn preparations were made ; the funeral 
took place, and all seemed over, when, in the middle of 
the night, the seeming widow, who lay awake, with her 
eyes fixed upon the watch, which she had placed upon 
her pillow, heard it begin to tick again, and that with 
astonishing rapidity. 

On the instant she felt sure that her husband was 
not dead, and, rising, summoned those who could aid 
her, proceeded to the burial place, unlocked the vault, 
where the cofifin lay on a stone slab, and had the lid 
lifted. 

The first glance showed a gleam of color in the 
doctor's face. 

Wrapped in blankets, which his wife had provided, 
he was borne home and laid upon his bed. There he 
was restored to full consciousness, regained his health 
and lived to extreme old age. 

Certainly, if this was a coincidence — as is, of course, 
possible — it was a most fortunate one, and no one 
could blame those who saw all this happen for regard- 
ing the watch with reverence and affection, and believ- 
ing all that its original possessor had told them to be 
solemnly true, forever afterward. 

A DREAM. 

A curious dream that visited the sleep of a little girl, 
one night, seems to find its proper place here. 

She was paying a visit to friends in the country, and 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 113 

was in good health and spirits when she retired. Her 
mind was full of the rural sports that she so much 
enjoyed, and though she knew that her step-father 
was not well, she had always seen people, who were ill, 
recover, and resume their places in the household, and 
did not feel that it -was a matter to trouble about. 

However, no sooner did she fall asleep, than she 
dreamed that she was once more at home, and found 
the house empty. 

In vain she looked for her mother, and when she ran 
up to the room where she had seen her step-father lying 
in bed — behold ! the bedstead had been drawn to the 
centre of the room, and divested of its furniture, and to 
each post was tied, by a black ribbon, a great, white 
horse. 

The next morning, her hostess took her on her knee, 
and gently broke the news that her step-father was 
dead. He had expired after the child left home, and 
as it was not thought expedient to summon the little 
girl to the funeral, it had taken place the day before — 
a message to that effect having been received at the 
country house, without the child having been aware 
of it. 

SISTER ZELIA. 

There are, in this city, many homes for poor girls, 
where those who have been ill, or, perhaps, in prison, 
are fed and taught for a certain space, and then pro- 
vided with an outfit of clothing, so that they can begin 
an honest, working life under favorable circumstances. 

On several occasions, I have taken servants from 



114 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

these homes, and last year I employed a girl who told 
me what follows. I have only her word for it, but I 
see no reason why she should have invented the tale. 

The home where she had been staying was under the 
care of a number of ladies, who devoted themselves to 
charitable work. 

They were known to the poor only as Sister Ann — 
Maria — etc., etc. They wore a religious habit, and 
were connected with the Episcopal Church. She de- 
scribed them as being as good as angels, but said that 
there had been one amongst them, called Sister Zelia, 
who was better than all the rest — to whom they looked 
up as to some superior being. 

This lady had lately departed this life, knowing that 
she should be greatly missed by those with whom she 
worked ; and Jane asserted that it was a recognized 
fact amongst the Sisters that she often visited them. 
They saw her in the chapel very frequently ; but her 
chief task was in taking charge of the unruly girls 
during the necessary absence of the workers still in the 
flesh. 

Jane declared that she had heard the Sisters talk 
about it many times. That they said, that when the 
sewing class was full of troublesome persons, who had 
not rid themselves of old habits and were disposed to 
be disorderly, Sister Zelia would glide in. 

The girls never saw her, but the Sisters did, and 
could notice her walking amongst them in her old and 
gentle way — and soon the ill-feeling would subside, the 
needles would move quietly and the faces grow 
amiable. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. IIS 

The spirit Sister would nod and smile encouragingly, 
and at the same time take the teacher's seat. The lat- 
ter might leave the room to eat or rest, or attend to 
some important thing, in the full assurance that there 
would be no disturbance while she was absent. 

" And, moreover," Jane said, " sometimes she'd open 
the door." 

Sister said, that one day the door-bell had rung, 

and she ran down stairs to answer it, when, behold ! 
Sister Zelia came out of the parlor and put her hand 

on the lock. Sister stepped back and made a 

bow — on which Sister Zelia smiled, motioned her to 
come forward and went into the parlor again. 

" This time," Jane added, " she was so real that 
Sister forgot she was dead, for a minute." 

I think that Jane believed all this implicitly. 

A VIRGINIA WITCH STORY. 

The story I am about to tell is one that is some- 
times told by a lady in Virginia, who declares that she 
believes every word of it. A coarser version is in cir- 
culation amongst the negroes, who frighten each other 
with it of winter nights as they gather round their win- 
ter fires, smoking their corn-cob pipes. 

It is interesting as proving that all the witches did 
not live and die in Salem, and bears a sort of second- 
cousinly relation to the old English ballad stories. I 
give it to the reader as I heard it, merely as a curiosity. 

Years ago, there lived in Virginia a gentleman named 
McKin, who was greatly respected by all who knew 



Il6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

him. He was rich ; he was kindly ; he had the good 
wishes of all his neighbors ; he was an excellent master 
and a good friendo He owned a great deal of real es- 
tate, and amongst it was the finest mill property in the 
county. It was known as " McKin's Grist Mill/' and 
was very valuable. Mr. McKin always kept a miller 
there, and, of course, the miller had his men, and a 
thriving business was carried on for years. Meanwhile, 
Mr. McKin remained a bachelor, and lived in the old 
family mansion with his mother and sisters, until the 
former died and the latter married. The people began 
to say that now, no doubt, Mr. McKin, himself, would 
marry. He was no longer young, and sundry widows 
were spoken of as most likely to be chosen as the 
future lady of the McKin house. However, neither 
maid nor matron of the place could flatter herself that 
the bachelor's attentions were " particular." 

He lived alone with his large retinue of servants for 
a year, and at last astonished his friends by marrying a 
lady who was an utter stranger to every one — a very 
beautiful young woman, who had golden hair, great 
black eyes, a skin like cream, and a brown mole on her 
left cheek. 

He gave a great supper to introduce her, and told 
every one that he hoped to see them often, and that the 
dull life he had led for some time was now at an end. 
His bride was admired by all. Her dress was exquisite ; 
she sparkled with jewelry, and a magnificent cluster 
ring she wore on the middle finger of the right hand 
attracted much attention. It was, like all the rest, a 
gift from Mr. McKin. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 117 

The host did his best ; the supper was delightful. 
There was a band of music from Richmond ; there were 
roses everywhere. Mr. McKin had tried to make the 
affair a splendid one ; but when it was over, the guests 
began to acknowledge to each other that they were 
disappointed. Why, they could not say — perhaps Mrs. 
McKin was cold in her manner ; some people could not 
help being that — but they had not been happy, and in 
old times every one had enjoyed himself so much at 
the McKin's. 

Then some one hinted that the house servants did not 
like their new lady, and liked still less her strange foreign 
maid, little and dark, and withered as an old monkey. 

" No " ; old Phoebe, the cook, had said to some one, 
" we-alls don' like madame's maid ; we-alls don' like her. 
We got no right to talk about de madame, nohow ; 
but madame's maid she jes a nigger, same as de rest, 
and we-alls reckon she mighty curus, mighty curus." It 
was plain that old Phoebe would have said the same of 
Mrs. McKin, had she dared to do so. 

The day after the party was Saturday. Mrs. McKin 
professed herself weary and remained in bed until sup- 
per time. Sunday morning, however, she arose. As 
she was eating breakfast, her husband spoke of the hour. 

" We shall have to make some haste, my dear," he 
said, "in order to be at church in season." 

It was some time before his wife answered him ; then 
she said, " I will not go to church to-day.' 

u I am very anxious that you should, my dear," Mr. 
McKin said ; " it will be expected of us." 

"You can go alone," she answered, coldly. 



Il8 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" Alone! the first Sabbath after my marriage," he 
cried, " oh, my dear, impossible ! See what I have 
bought for you for the occasion " — and he took from a 
table a small parcel, unfolded it and handed Mrs. Mc- 
Kin a beautiful little prayer book, bound in blue velvet, 
with silver clasps, and her name on the corner in silver 
letters. As he placed it before her, she uttered a low 
cry and fainted away. The maid rushed to her aid 
and they carried her to her room, where thencefor- 
ward she remained. 

From that moment, Mr. McKin's beautiful young 
wife seemed to be bedridden ; she never left her pillow. 
Mr. McKin consulted the most celebrated physicians ; 
none of them could discover what ailed her. The 
maid nursed her continually. Mr. McKin was not en- 
couraged to enter the room ; he always made his wife's 
head ache when he spoke to her. Finally, he contented 
himself with a brief call of inquiry every morning. He 
was a very unhappy man, more desolate than in his 
bachelor days. 

Old Phoebe began to tell strange stories to her 
friend, the housekeeper at the hotel. 

u Mars Jack mighty nigh done broke his heart," she 
would say, " I's mighty sorry for Mars Jack, but we-all 
jes despises the madame. She sick in bed all day, but 
in de night, I reckon, she mighty well, yes'm she mighty 
well den, and she get up and dress shese'f and eat a big 
supper an go out ob de do', yes'm she do, an dat little 
chimpmunk ob a maid she go 'long wid her an day 
done come back jes befo' sun-up, yes'm we-all knows 
dat de libin truff." 



THE FREED SPIRIT. II9 

"Why don't you tell you Mars Jack?" the house- 
keeper asked. 

"Dere aint nobody daast tell dat yar to Mars Jack," 

said Phoebe ; " nobody." And no one did dare ; but 

soon it was whispered everywhere that the beautiful 

Mrs. McKin had a lover, whom she went to meet in 

.the pine woods at midnight. 

But there was something else that Mr. Jack McKin 
was to hear shortly. There was trouble at the mill, 
and the trouble was of a supernatural sort — the miller 
and his men had seen a ghost. 

One by one the men had been frightened away, and 
the miller was alone at his post. At last he came up to 
the McKin mansion one day, and resigned his millership. 
He was reluctant to give his reasons, but finally did so. 
The ghosts — there were two of them — manifested 
themselves every night. They were not to be fright- 
ened away, and did mischief to the grain, and set fire 
to the mill in various places, though he had always 
found the flames in time to put them out. Now they 
threatened to kill him if he were not gone in three 
days. 

" I am amazed to hear such a story from a white 
man of intelligence," was Jack McKin's comment on the 
tale. " Some one is evidently trying to frighten you 
away. Remain, and on the night they threaten to 
take your life, the sheriff and his men shall be with 
you." 

Finally, the miller returned to the mill, and, at dusk, 
on the third day, was seen alive and well by people who 
came with grist. When the sheriff and his men came 



120 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

stealthily through the woods an hour later, the mill was 
perfectly dark. They lit their lanterns and went 
through it, calling on the miller by name, but receiving 
no answer, until they found him in his own room, lying 
on his face, a pistol in his hand, an overturned lamp 
beside him, dead. He had been shot through the 
heart. 

There was no living, human being in the old mill, 
and for a long while no one went near it. At last, 
people began to say that the miller had shot himself 
by accident, and that the negroes had frightened him. 
Another miller applied for the place, and remained 
three days. In fact, to cut a long story short, the only 
other miller who dared to brave the warning that the 
ghost gave them all, was found dead, as the first one 
had been. 

The mill was soon spoken of as haunted, by every 
one ; no one would work there, and finally Mr. McKin 
closed it, and it was left to itself and to the ghost. 

All this while Madame McKin remained an invalid, 
shut in her room all day, watched by her maid and 
talked of in whispers by her servants. 

It was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered young fellow 
who walked up the steps of the McKin mansion one 
day, asked to see the master, and begged to be allowed 
to take charge ofthe grist-mill. 

" Fve heard the story," he said, as Mr. McKin began 
to explain. " I don't believe in ghosts, and they can't 
scare me, any way. I'm in hard luck and I'm a good 
miller. Trust me, and your mill shall work better 
than ever. You'll do me a service and I'll do you one." 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 121 

In vain Mr. McKin set before him the fact that two 
millers had already been killed in the haunted mill ; 
the young giant declared that he should not be, and, 
finally, the gentleman engaged him. The mill was 
opened and the miller set to work. 

He took with him into the mill a bible, a revolver, 
and a large, sharp axe. For the first two nights he saw 
nothing, but heard noises like the falling of heavy mill- 
stones on the floor above, screams and groans, and oaths 
uttered by hideous voices. He had expected some- 
thing like this, and remained in his room, reading his 
bible by the light of a shaded lamp. 

On the third night, having heard the same noises and 
quietly disregarded them, his door was dashed open 
and a hideous form entered. It was something between 
a woman and a great bird of prey. It wore fluttering 
white robes, and had, instead of hands, great black 
claws. It floated toward him through the air, and 
behind it came another, like unto it, but smaller. The 
first creature swooped downward and made a clutch 
at the lamp — as it did so, he snatched his revolver from 
his belt and fired, emptying all the chambers. The 
strange beings vanished w T ith wild shrieks, but in a 
moment they entered again. This time the largest one 
made a furious clutch at the lamp. As she did so, he 
lifted his axe above his head, and with one blow severed 
the hideous, black claw from what looked like a 
shriveled human arm ; then he hurled his bible at the 
head of the smaller fiend. Instantly, screams, oaths 
and horrible curses filled the air, the strange beings 
vanished, and silence reigned. The black claw dropped 



122 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

to the table — it was such a hideous sight that the 
miller covered it with a cloth, that he might not see it. 

He kept watch all night, and, early in the morning, 
Mr. McKin, who had been told that firing had been 
heard in the mill, came to make inquiries. The miller 
told his tale and Mr. McKin complimented him on 
his bravery. Of course, he was desirous of seeing the 
amputated claw, and the miller proudly drew away the 
cloth. Behold ! there lay upon the table, not a claw, 
but a woman's beautiful hand — a right hand — on the 
middle finger of which gleamed a splendid cluster dia- 
mond ring. 

At the sight of this, horror seized the miller, and Mr. 
McKin seemed as if about to die. He knew the hand ; 
he knew the ring. 

Then, without a word, he walked out of the mill and 
homeward, and into his wife's chamber. She was in 
bed, as usual. The maid, pale, and with a great bruise 
on her forehead, interposed to prevent his approach : 
" Madame is very ill," she said. 

"Out of my way, woman," he cried, and pushed her 
aside ; then, bending over his wife's bed, but without his 
usual show of tenderness, he said, sternly : " Show me 
your hand." 

She thrust forth her left one. " The other," he said. 

She uttered a scream, and he turned down the coun- 
terpane ; but there was no hand to show, only a bandaged 
stump, from which it had been severed. 

The next day, the whole country was horrified by 
hearing that Jack McKin, the most universally beloved 
and admired resident of the place, had committed sui- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 23 

cide. He had shot himself through the brain, beside 
his mother's grave. 

Hundreds of people attended his funeral, and most 
of them were real mourners. 

As for Mrs. McKin and her maid, no one had seen 
them leave the house ; they had called for neither car- 
riage nor horses, and made no preparations for de- 
parture. The ladies' elegant wardrobe was scattered 
about in the greatest confusion. No care had been 
taken of either jewelry or money. There was blood 
upon the towels, and bloody stains upon the doors, and 
the maid's room was in the same disorder. No one 
ever saw either of the women again. 

A few days later, a committee of grave and reverend 
personages went to the mill to examine the hand which 
the miller had kept folded in a cloth ; but when they 
stood around the table, and with trembling hands undid 
the wrappings — behold ! there lay before them only an 
immense and hideous black claw. Of this they took 
possession, and it was for a long time preserved in 
spirits in the court-house of the town. It is declared 
that no one, however learned in such matters, was ever 
able to say to what sort of creature it belonged, and 
that it more greatly resembled the claw of the fabled 
Griffin than any other thing that can be thought of. 

McKin's Mills is still pointed out to strangers who 
visit the neighborhood. It is now a weather-stained, 
moss-covered ruin, which no one ever enters, and 
which no negro could be induced to pass after night- 
fall ; for they believe that, exactly as the clock strikes 
twelve, two horrible creatures, with flaming eyes and 



124 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

flapping wings, are to be seen, and the largest and 
fiercest has but one claw. 

There are hundreds of stories, as weird as this, told by 
the negroes of the South ; but it is difficult to get into 
the confidence of those who remember them. The old 
people mistrust the motives of " white folks" who 
question them. They will seldom do more than to 
confess that for " sartin sure dey is haants and dey is 
witches." There can be no doubt, however, that could 
the material be collected, a very interesting volume of 
Southern folk-lore could be written. Nothing can be 
more certain than that most of the negroes believe in 
voudoo, though the mysteries of this sort of black magic 
are buried in the bosoms of the descendants of the 
Africans who were brought to this country in the old 
slave ships. 



125 



CHAPTER 10. 

SOME CELEBRATED MEDIUMS. 
MISS EDMONDS. 

The first medium I ever saw was Miss Edmonds, the 
daughter of Judge Edmonds. I was very young at the 
time — many girls are still going to school at that age — 
though I had already been wife and widow. I was 
living at home in my father's house, and would, not 
have been permitted to go alone to a public spiritual 
seance, or to the house of the ordinary clairvoyant, 
but Miss Edmonds was the friend of a friend of ours, 
and kindly sent me word to come to her that she might 
try to get some communication for me. Miss Edmonds 
was a lady, born and bred ; to no one did she make any 
charge whatever. A fair woman, with large blue eyes, 
I remember her. 

When she had closed the door of the reception room 
into which she invited me, we had a little chat, and I 
remember that she told me that she longed to see her 
mother and a sister, or sisters, who had passed away, 
but that she could never be passive enough. They 
appeared for an instant, faint and dim as shadows ; but 
her agitation prevented her from communicating with 
them and they vanished. Words to this effect — I am 
not using her exact language. 



126 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

She was a lovely, gentle woman, and not the person 
to deceive any one, even had there been the trace of a 
motive for it. 

It was some little while before she became entranced, 
and strange changes passed over her face and its ex- 
pression altered greatly. Then she began to speak in 
a strong, Irish brogue. 

She had told me that she was controlled by an Irish 
spirit. 

A message was given to me which purported to be 
from my husband, and she told me I had lost a little 
baby, and that the flowers that were placed in its dead 
hands were " hyacinths made of wax." This was true. 
In fact, I had received what a Spiritualist would con- 
sider a proof of spirit presence. The only other ex- 
planation is that she unconsciously read my mind, 
which is in itself sufficiently astonishing. 

I am told that this lady afterward came to regard 
communication with spirits as a sin, and entered a con- 
vent, where she still remained when I received the in- 
formation. But I do not comprehend why a devout 
Catholic should see any sin in such visions as those of 
Miss Edmonds. The Irishman who was believed by 
her to be her " control " was plainly a good Christian, 
and the advice he gave might have fallen from the lips 
of any pious clergyman. 

I cannot remember interviewing any medium from 
that day until I went to Foster's seance rooms. 

Though I had once met a woman who " saw things " 
in crystals, and who described a most peculiar person, 
perfectly, in a very amusing fashion. 



CHARLES FOSTER. \2J 

As my experience with Charles Foster was a really 
astonishing thing, and sent me home positively con- 
vinced that on that occasion, at least, he was possessed 
of unaccountable power, I will give it in detail. 

I had heard marvelous tales of Foster. I had also 
heard that he had been " exposed in court"; that is, 
that it was proven that red letters, such as often ap- 
peared upon his arm, could be produced by a trick. 
Doubtless they can. Perhaps he thus produced them ; 
but that does not explain away such a fact as this : 
Two people arrive from the far West one morning. 
They have never seen Foster, but on the cars a 
Spiritualist had told them wonderful stories of him. 
They decide that this is one of the New York sights 
they wish to see, and that it will be worth the five dol- 
lars apiece that it will cost them. They make some 
changes in their dress at a hotel, dine, light their cigars 
and walk to Foster's rooms. They have never seen 
him, or he them ; they are no more publicly known 
than any two gentlemen who have been ordinarily 
prosperous in business ; they have told no one of their 
intention to visit Foster. As they walked along, they 
have said to each other, " What shall we ask? " and one 
has said, " Well, I should like to know about Bill Mc- 
Lane." This is a long distance from Foster's residence. 

They enter the seance room. Without having been in- 
troduced by name, or having given their cards, and be- 
fore they have spoken a word, Foster rolls up his shirt 
sleeves, walks toward them and strikes his arm briskly, 
and they see upon it, in bright red letters — William 
McLane. 



128 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" That is the man you want to know about — he is 
standing near you — he came in before you," he says, 
"you are — (so and so and so and so)," giving their 
names correctly, " and he says, I did not commit sui- 
cide, I fell into the water. I could have got out if it 
had been smooth bottom there, but I stuck in the mud, 
you remember." 

Bill McLane, as his friends called him, was found un- 
der such circumstances as these — the account was cor- 
rect. To prepare red letters to start forth on his arm, 
might have been easy, but what "trick" could teach 
Foster that William McLane was the name in the 
mind of these strangers, or that he was drowned in a 
western river. 

I do not vouch for this story ; but it had been told. 
Others, similar, had been sworn to, and the knowledge 
of facts was much more important than the production 
of red letters on human flesh. 

I cannot say that, on the day on which I went to 
Foster's rooms, I believed any of these stories. Indeed, 
I had met with so many Spiritualists, who, being de- 
vout believers in the phenomena of Spiritualism them- 
selves, felt that it was best for others to believe also, 
and who, not having testimony which would convince 
troublesome people who asked questions, were prone 
to add to stories they took on faith the little things 
they needed to win the credence of skeptics, that my 
trust in human testimony was shaken. 

Too zealous Spiritualists tell these small white lies 
for your " own little good " in order that you may be 
as happy as they are. So do wonder-lovers for the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 29 

sake of amazing you. And, as my hand was on Mr. Fos- 
ter's bell, I said to myself that I was probably about to 
illustrate once more the adage, " a fool and his money 
are soon parted," by presenting a five dollar note to a 
clever impostor. However, I did not turn away ; I en- 
tered. A number of ladies were seated about a well- 
furnished parlor, and a lady with white hair advanced 
and spoke to me. She told me that Mr. Foster was 
engaged at the moment ; but if I could wait, he would 
see me soon. I had never seen the lady before, nor did 
she know me. The guests were chatting, and one lady, 
a very handsome woman, who spoke of Georgia as her 
home, was telling marvelous things that people she 
knew had heard from Mr. Foster. 

After a while the lady with white hair informed me 
that if I chose I could write out ten or twelve questions 
beforehand, in order to save time by having them 
ready. I was full of the idea of trickery and decep- 
tion, and therefore said to myself, " she will probably 
watch me and tell him what I write." Therefore, I 
took the paper she gave me, thin, white wrapping 
paper, and a book on which to place it, and sat down 
in a corner which a large piece of furniture, a sort of 
sideboard, fenced off from the rest of the room. It 
was in a dark corner, and the ladies I have mentioned 
sat near the window, where the lady with white hair 
joined them ; and, assuredly, they were entirely occupied 
with their conversation and made no attempt to 
watch me. 

I wrote twelve questions ; the first and its answer 
will be amply sufficient for my purpose. In writing it, 



130 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

I thought of my father, to whom I was ardently at- 
tached. I believe I adored him from the moment I 
opened my eyes on this world. He was stricken down 
in the midst of his usefulness, and with his dreams and 
hopes all unfulfilled, to suffer an agonizing illness of 
three years, of which he died before he was yet fifty 
years of age. He had been lost to us for ten years on 
the date of my visit to Charles Foster, and I am sure 
that they had never met ; that Mr. Foster did not 
know me ; that I had never seen any of the ladies in the 
parlor, and, moreover, though I thought of my father, I 
refrained from using his name, or any name, in the 
questions I wrote, or from signing them even by so 
much as an initial. 

But I must still further preface my story in order to 
explain the question. I must first say that during my 
father's lifetime he conceived the idea of painting a 
panorama of the " Pilgrim's Progress." When I was a 
little child, I had heard him talk of it ; and, while I was 
still a little girl, he, for a time, abandoned his regular 
art work in order to complete this. 

If any one amongst my readers, who had the heart 
and eye of an artist, ever saw that panorama, I need 
not tell them that it was a thing of beauty, something 
set apart from any .other work of the kind I ever saw. 
My father, Mr. Joseph Kyle, was a great painter, and 
a portrait of him, by himself, which we have at home, 
is as fine a head as any by the most renowned painters 
of the world. It is very rarely that such a man paints 
a panorama. The wonderful coloring, skies such as 
nature gives us, the delicate illustration of Bunyan's 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 131 

great allegory, made it unique and valuable, and not to 
be confounded with a pretty little panorama of the 
same name recently exhibited in Sunday-schools. Ar- 
tists who saw my father's panorama grew enthusiastic 
over it. It was an ideal work of which my father had 
talked and dreamed, and I knew that if he retained his 
identity, he would not forget it. Therefore, I resolved to 
speak of that in my question. What I wrote was 
simply this : 

" Dear father, will you tell me what art work you 
were most interested in, in 18 — ?" giving the year 
from memory. 

As I wrote these words, I felt a sort of grieved con- 
tempt for myself for being in such a place at all, and 
had no expectation of receiving any definite answer. 
Moreover, I did my best to make what I had written 
illegible. I did not fold the paper ; I rolled it into a 
ball, pressing it hard with my palms and making a cir- 
cular motion all the while. Then I wrote the other 
questions, and I have regretted ever since that they 
were all too ill-considered to be tests, however much 
to the point the answers might be. In fact, I was 
already disgusted with the whole affair. 

After all the little pellets were made the size of large 
pease and quite hard, I shook them in my handker- 
chief, mixing them so that I could not have picked out 
any one of them. Just then I was told that Mr. Foster 
was disengaged, and was ushered into a large, square 
room, very fresh and bright, the windows wide open, 
and the furniture little more than a table, some chairs, 
a what-not full of books and the mantel decorations. 



132 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

It struck me at first as rather unconventional in the 
medium to wear no coat ; but I soon remembered that 
he was obliged to roll up his sleeves in order to ex- 
hibit the red letters which appeared upon his arm. He 
did not at first ask me to be seated, or take a seat him- 
self, but, standing near the window, folded back his 
shirt sleeve, held his left arm rigidly extended and 
struck it thrice between the wrist and elbow with the 
palm of his right hand. Waiting a moment, he repeated 
this process, but nothing came of it. 

" Sometimes names appear on my arm," he said. 
" But they won't come this time." He seemed disap- 
pointed and walked toward the table, pulling down the 
sleeves and buttoning the wristbands. 

A photograph album lay there ; he handed it to me, 
asking if I would like to look at it, opening it at a 
picture of himself, with a very solemn looking " spook " 
holding a white wreath over his head. I returned it 
with the words : " I know how those are made." I 
thought I did then ; I am not so sure now. How often 
I recall the remark of an old German, to whom my 
husband had just taught some useful thing he did not 
know before, as to the management of a horse. 

" Veil, veil, so longer as a man lives, so more he 
finds, by gracious goodness, out." 

At least we find " out " that we know very little. 
Yet, to this day, those " spook " pictures savor of fraud,, 
and I cannot see why a man, who could really do such 
wonderful things, exhibited them. 

Suffice it to say that, as Mr. Foster placed the book 
on the what-not, laughing as he did so, I was ready to 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 133 

turn in disgust from the room and leave him to deceive 
others. However, I sat down at the table and he took 
a seat opposite me. He asked me if I had " written 
any questions ? " and I produced my dozen little balls. 
He took them from me, touched them to his forehead 
for the briefest space of time and tossed them back 
upon the table. 

As they touched his forehead, he had read aloud the 
questions I had asked, as rapidly as though they had 
been printed and lying before him. He did not unroll 
them, exchange them or perform any trick whatever. 
When all were read, he said : " An answer comes to 
this one " — pushing one toward me with a pencil. 
" Dear father, will you tell me what art work you were 
most interested in, in 18 — ? " 

As he spoke, I unrolled the paper and found within 
the question he repeated, very much rubbed and 
smudged, to be sure, and difficult to decipher by any 
stranger not having a key to it. I now felt interested ; 
for, if my salvation depended upon it, I could swear that 
there was not a possibility of deception. He had read 
what was written by other than the usual means. 

He took a pencil from his pocket, and paper lay on 
the table. He drew it toward him, then pushed it 
back. 

" Sometimes/' he said, "they give me my answer 
in the form of a picture — that will be done this time." 
He pushed back his chair and looked toward the wall 
of the room : "Ah ! " said he, " I see the figure of an 
old man in a brown gown, with a book in his hand." 

" He fancies he is describing my father," I thought, 



134 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

But the next thing he said was : " Why, it is old 
Bunyan. The book in his hand is Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's 
Progress/ Does he say your father illustrated the 
' Pilgrim's Progress ? ' No, no ! that is not what he says 
— your father painted a panorama of the * Pilgrim's 
Progress '—you ask him about that ; " and then he gave 
me, after a little pause, my father's name, Joseph 
Kyle. 

Now, even if he had known my father, it is not likely 
that he would have hit upon this panorama to speak of, 
since panorama painting was not my father's specialty. 
He was known as a portrait painter, and an historical 
painter. There were other things that would have 
been selected by a shrewd deceiver as being my father's 
work. 

Then Mr. Foster did not know whose daughter I 
was, and I had never seen him before nor been in any 
society where he was personally known. I could be 
positively certain, also, that I had never met any of 
those ladies who were in the parlor. 

Later, he told me that he saw the spirit of a deceased 
friend, who introduced me by my full name. But the 
lady had recently passed away, and was well known 
to the public, so his knowledge of her name proved 
nothing. 

And now let me ask if, per possibility, Mr. Foster 
knew and recognized me, and was able, by some 
juggling trick, to produce any one's name upon his arm, 
why had he not done so? He had had ample time for 
preparation. 

In manner, I thought Mr. Foster honest and simple 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 135 

to a degree. He seemed deeply interested in what he 
saw, and had not the air of one playing a part. How- 
ever, the only convincing point was the truth of his 
replies to my questions. He might have deceived 
my senses, but what he told me was not within his 
knowledge. 

The other pellets of paper were read in the same 
manner ; I unrolled them on the spot, and mind-reading 
did not cover the ground, since I could not have told 
one from the other. In all cases he gave me definite 
replies ; but I had not written them with judgment, 
they were not test questions, save to myself — a fact 
which I now regret. 

Of course, only those who had experience of the same 
kind, with the same man, ever would believe that I told 
this story exactly as it happened. That he unrolled 
the pellets as the prestidigitateur would, was the usual 
idea ; or, that I chattered to the ladies in the front 
room, and that he got his information thus ; that he 
knew my father, and had the panorama of the " Pilgrim's 
Progress " stored away in his mind in case I should 
come to one of his seances — this is the unlikeliest of 
all ; as I have said, my father was a painter of portraits 
and historical pictures. 

He stepped outside of his usual line when he painted 
this panorama. Foster would have been much more 
likely to mention something else had he known my 
father. 

I never saw this medium again. My impression is 
that he left New York very shortly and never again 
held seances in that city. 



136 MRS. MARGARET FOX KANE. 

The Fox sisters have been public property ever since 
the epoch of the Rochester Knockings ; nor can I re- 
member any time when some one had not investigated 
and exposed, in the papers, their whole system of 
making the raps with the toe-joints; yet, still, they con- 
tinued to rap and to be paid for rapping. 

Once, I remember, Mr. Cafferty, the artist, came into 
my father's studio and told the following story : 

He was painting a portrait of one of the Fox girls — 
I am not sure which — and, as she posed, he said to her : 

" Miss Fox, I have never heard any of your famous 
raps ; do you think you could make your spirits rap 
for me ? " 

" I can try, Mr. Cafferty," Miss Fox replied. " Where 
will you have the rap ? " 

He designated a door which opened into an ad- 
joining studio occupied by another artist ; and she arose, 
and, holding back her skirt, touched the tips of her 
fingers to the panels. In an instant the knocks came. 

"They were not little taps," I remember Mr. Caf- 
ferty said ; " they were like the blows of a sledge-ham- 
mer." It was impossible for her to have made them 
with her toes, he went on to say, and that the wood 
vibrated under them. 

In 1886, I think, I made an appointment with Mrs. 
Kane to come to my house for an evening. 

She came. Chairs were placed around a table and 
some writing done, nothing convincing, but we heard 
positive raps. I felt them distinctly upon my chair, 
Mrs. Kane's hands being on the table and her feet set 
close together in full view upon the floor. Such blows 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 37 

as could be made with a tack-hammer. I at that time 
sat next to Mrs. Kane. I changed my seat, putting a 
gentleman, one of our family, next to her, and two 
more blows came, really uncomfortable ones, upon my 
back. The sounds were quite audible elsewhere ; they 
appeared to fall on the table, or the wall, or the floor. 

Before leaving us, Mrs. Kane stood near an open 
door, held back her skirts so that her feet could be 
seen, and, standing at the length of her arm, touched 
the tips of her fingers to the panels. 

Raps, not loud, but strong, came upon the door, and 
our hands being upon it, felt the reverberation. 

The blows upon my own person were, however, the 
most singular. 

I believe Mrs. Kane, before her death, made public 
confession of deception ; but I should be glad to know 
how " her toes " could strike my back in a lighted 
room, where I was one of a tableful of persons, all on 
the watch for deception, none of them having any 
faith in the rappings. No proof whatever of spirit 
presence was given ; but I believed and still believe the 
raps to be phenomenal. 



138 



CHAPTER ii. 

ABOUT BABIES. 

Do you remember William Wordsworth's beautiful 
poem, Intimations of Immortality? — let me quote the 
fifth verse : 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, 

The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar ; 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy; 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows 

He sees in it his joy; 
The youth who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is nature's priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended ; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 1 ' 

In the author's note to this poem, Mr. Wordsworth, 
speaking of the belief in a prior state of existence, 
remarks : 

" Let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not 
advanced in Revelation, there is nothing to contradict 
it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 39 

" Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the 
popular creeds of many nations, and, among all persons 
acquainted with classic literature, is known as an in- 
gredient in Platonic philosophy." 

This is not exactly the Theosophical idea of incarna- 
tion, but it approaches it. 

The re-incarnation theory rather frightens me. I like 
better to think that once this world's troubles are over, 
I shall go to a happier shore. But plainly, things in 
general were not arranged to suit my particular fancy, 
and it may be that I have been ever so many people, 
and shall be ever so many more. I used to say, in my 
childhood, that I knew I had once been a little angel, 
because I remembered flying as well as I now remem- 
ber anything that happened in my babyhood, and I 
have proved to older people that I could remember 
many occurrences that transpired when I was ten 
months old. 

I have described to my mother a house, whence we 
moved when I was that age, and especially how my 
father taught me to walk — on a blue box, a long one, 
which stood for a while in the back garden, and which 
I had never seen since, or heard spoken of. 

I also described a great ivy vine, growing over a 
church wall, and an old-fashioned hydrant, in an open- 
way behind the "garden, and told the name of the 
grocer the family dealt with — " Stewart" — which I re- 
membered because I liked the sugar-crackers bought 
there, and had heard people say — "when you go to 
Stewart's, get some crackers for Mamie." 

I can distinctly recall the effort of balancing myself, 



140 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

and my fear of falling — a perfect terror — so that I 
would not step alone for a long while, though I have 
all my life, since, delighted in the exercise of walking, 
as some people do in riding, others in dancing. 

But, while I remember places, people and occur- 
rences, I remember my emotions best, and I can tell 
you just how a baby feels. 

A baby feels more strongly than a grown person, 
especially when it is very young. It cannot remember 
much before ten months ; but perhaps its feelings are 
more intense at one month — one week — one day. Its 
poor, useless little body cannot express anything, but 
I am not sure what it may be feeling — I do not say 
thinking, remember. Its shrieks may be expressions 
of a woe unutterable, its smiles of an angelic joy. I 
know that a baby a year old can love as men and 
women cannot. How it loves its mother'. " Natural 
instinct " — you say. No ; it is pure love. I loved my 
mother, my father and my grandmother, intensely. 
When, in the evening, father took me on his knee, great 
waves of bliss used to sweep over me — actual currents 
of joy. We all felt that in childhood, when father 
held us in his arms — we have spoken of it together. 

A baby feels intense love, intense fear, intense long- 
ing for the presence of those dear to it, only generally 
it forgets all about it later. It has no anticipation ; it 
lives in the present. It feels, at new objects, astonish- 
ment not to be expressed by any words of mine, and 
it wants to know — oh, how it wants to know everything ! 
I was supposed to be different from other babies of 
my age, because I talked glibly at a year, and asked 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 141 

questions by the hundred. But it was only that I could 
talk, while they were yet dumb. 

" How did the ladies get into the cages ? " was one 
important question in my mind, at twelve months. I 
thought of it before I asked it. I remember ponder- 
ing it carefully, and putting it to every one. No one 
knew w r hat I meant ; people thought I called the canary 
bird "a lady," but I knew birds from women. 

I asked again and again. At last they discovered 
that, when I was taken out, I saw people looking from 
the upper windows, which had green blind shutters. I 
could not think how they got there, and my mother 
taught me, with some trouble, the mystery of stairs and 
windows, showing me the windows from outside of the 
house, and then taking me up to look out of them. 

No astronomer, who should, some day, see through a 
telescope all the mysteries of Mars, could be more de- 
lighted with his knowledge than I. 

I could write a little book, all by itself, of my memo- 
ries from the age of one year to that of five ; and I be- 
lieve we come into the world with all our emotions 
about us, not our passions. 

At least we are not aware of them, until they are 
brought to light by the events and conditions of lives. 
But the spirit is there, and what belongs to it, and, 
most of all, love. Take that comfort to your hearts, 
mothers. That little creature in your arms, for whom 
you have suffered, for whom you gladly sacrifice your 
ease, your repose, pleasant intercourse, many things 
every day — that darling little baby of yours is not 
merely a little animal. It loves you already. It can- 



142 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

not show you that love in any way, as yet, but you feel 
it. That is why a poor working woman will sometimes 
say — "it rests me so to take baby," when some one, 
who does not know what an infant can be to a mother, 
feels that it must be only an additional burden, an- 
other trouble in her weary life. 

As for memory of a past existence, which some 
people believe they have, I never had any, except that 
fancy of flying, which seemed to me a positive memory, 
and that I used to fly up above the earth through the 
sky. 

One day, at five years of age, I attempted to give an 
exhibition of this power, which I felt sure I still pos- 
sessed, to a younger sister, who doubted my statement., 

She sat at the foot of the garret stairs, which I as- 
cended, and I flew from the top, flapping my arms, 
since I had no wings. 

The result astonished me. Instead of floating gently 
down, as I expected to do, I came to the floor with a 
crash, to the consternation of the family. 

Several cuts and bruises remained to remind me of the 
adventure. But I suffered more from disappointment 
— I remembered that it had been so delightful to fly. 

I have a friend whose baby girl always knew when 
her father was coming home. He traveled constantly 
and often arrived without warning ; but whenever the 
little child said " papa is coming " — the mother knew 
that he was near at hand. 

Before she could talk plainly, the tiny girl would go 
to the window, insist on having the door opened, and 
declare : 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 143 

" Papa toming ! " If some one said — " no dear, papa 
is far away," she would stamp her little foot and say — 
" yes, yes, papa toming," and it was always so. 

A BABY GHOST-SEER. 

Lately, I have heard a story of a baby whose father 
died a few weeks ago. The family live in New York 
State. My informant tells me that the little one de- 
clares that every night papa comes and plays with her, 
" just as he used to." 

She tells of their romps, and what papa does and 
says. The mother believes it true ; so do her friends. 

The persons w T ho tell the story, say that Mrs. tries 

to lie awake and see the miracle, but that she can never 
do so, for heavy sleep always falls upon her, and noth- 
ing happens while she is awake. 

I have only heard this from strangers ; but they cer- 
tainly believed the tale they told. 



144 



CHAPTER 12. 

PLANCHETTE. 

From such memories as these Planchette cannot be 
omitted. 

Queer little Planchette, to which one involuntarily 
accords such personality as a family sewing-machine, 
or clock, or typewriter possesses in one's fancy. I re- 
member well how I heard of her. At a certain social 
meeting, a lady sitting near me said : 

" I suppose you have seen Planchette ? I have such 
a funny story about Planchette. " 

I did not even know what Planchette was, and as the 
name implied that it was a little board of some sort, I 
fancied it to be a game, and made some remark to that 
effect. My neighbor then explained what it was and 
how it was manipulated, and told me that a very well-bred 
and exceedingly pious family of her acquaintance — the 
father a clergyman of the Universalist Church — had 
bought one and that it answered all their questions cor- 
rectly. That they were infatuated with it and played 
with it every evening, until, at last, it " began to swear," 
and, in the end, used such shocking language that they 
were obliged to banish it. If I remember rightly, they 
came to believe that some evil being, if not Satan him- 
self, supervised this remarkable toy, and to feel actu- 
ally afraid of it. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 145 

I, however, secretly believed that the wicked spirit 
dwelt in some living person whose fingers touched the 
little board, and I straightway bought a Planchette of 
my own and conveyed it home with me. 

With the enthusiasm of youth we gathered around 
the table, on which were spread sheets of brown paper, 
and squealed with delight when our three-legged mys- 
tery began to walk about on its roller-skates. At first 
it made long loops, pot hooks, and " wiggle-waggles." 
Nothing else expresses my meaning, so forgive me for 
coining a word. And, at last, when any four hands 
were upon it, it would "write," but not for any one 
person. Our Planchette assuredly only once became 
profane. On one occasion it used a big, big D, but 
apologized in the most abject manner and promised to 
behave better in the future. But, alas! it was untruth- 
ful. It told us many solemn falsehoods. 

That this one was dead ; that that building was in 
flames ; that all sorts of public catastrophes had oc- 
curred, without having the slightest foundation for its 
tales. Reproached, it would laugh, writing " ha-ha- 
ha" upon the paper, or standing on two legs and bring- 
ing down the other rapidly, with a wild " rat-tat-too." 

We were, none of us, intentionally deceiving the rest : 
we were too honest, too much in earnest, we would 
have scorned to do it for the sake of fun ; but Plan- 
chette gave us many hearty laughs before it began to 
write under what one might call a nom de plume, always 
signing itself "Charlie," and becoming simply absurd. 
It conveyed to us the impression of a young, half-edu- 
cated, wholly unreliable man, or perhaps a big boy. It 



146 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

was flippant always ; it continually acted the same role, 
and never took on any other character. 

Occasionally it told us the truth. As I wish to do this 
always, I shall be obliged to state exactly how this was. 

Planchette, after losing all credit for veracity, sud- 
denly uttered a little prophecy which " came true," and, 
when complimented on this, wrote : 

" Oh, yes ; when Mastadon on the chimney sees a 
thing it is always so." 

"What is Mastadon on the chimney?" we inquired. 
But Planchette would not explain. However, when 
" Mastadon on the chimney sees this " was written by 
way of preface, the always unimportant prophecy was 
fulfilled. 

Absurd as it was, this is a proof to our minds that 
none of us even involuntarily moved Planchette ; the 
mysterious being, " Mastadon on the chimney," was the 
outgrowth of an imagination, which belonged to none of 
us individually. 

Nothing valuable enough to record was ever written 
that I can remember, except that once an address, that 
none of us were conscious of knowing, was given, and 
that once Planchette wrote — " Mastadon on the roof 
says that Snowtop is coming this afternoon." 

We knew no one called Snowtop ; it is not a likely 
name. 

Finally, we decided that Charlie alluded to some one 
with white hair. He said "no." 

" With a white hat, then ? " 

Still " no "; then was added, " her name is Snowtop," 
and Planche-tte became mute. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 147 

That afternoon a young lady named Whitehead 
called, a Miss Whitehead, and when Planchette wrote for 
us again, these words were scribbled : " Well, she came ; 
didn't she ? Whitehead and Snowtop are the same." 

At last came a period of stupid sameness, trivial 
jokes. Plainly the ministering power which possessed 
Planchette was not improving, mentally or morally, and 
then the brass legs grew loose and finally came off, and 
it was put away and never mended. 

I think that most people who possessed a Planchette 
will remember that theirs came to some such end. 

But there is no need of the little board. Let any 
two people shut themselves up in a quiet place, one of 
them holding a pencil of soft lead, and having beneath 
it some soft paper, suitable for the purpose, the other 
grasping the wrist of the hand that holds the pencil, 
and probably in a short time one will say, " are you 
pulling my hand?" and the other, " certainly you are 
pulling mine?" and whatever happens with Planchette 
will happen without it, and usually much more. 

I do not say that all couples will experience this ; 
but many will. There will be scribbling, followed by 
writing of more or less importance. You need to be as 
passive as possible and to trust each other implicitly. 

I am not sure that any valuable proof of anything 
has been thus attained, and I am not sure that it has 
not been, either. 

It may be self-delusion, where people are given to 
deluding themselves. A wicked person could easily 
deceive another, but all the grins of ridicule, all the 
sneers of contempt do not do away with the fact that 



148 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

the hands of two persons thus joined will, without con- 
scious physical or mental exertion on the part of either, 
write intelligent sentences. 

I have a theory of my own which I have never heard 
advanced — it is this : That there is a certain sort of 
telegraphic communication between ourselves and those 
who are inhabitants of other worlds or other spaces. 

As, like everybody else, I have no knowledge of the 
subject, and can only theorize, I cannot express myself 
exactly, but I mean this : That, wherever they are, they 
have learned to communicate with us in that fashion — 
that they are not in the room, touching our wrists, but 
that they send messages by electric currents. 

That we often do not comprehend them, also that they 
make mistakes, is certain ; so do ordinary telegraph oper- 
ators ; but it seems certain that experiments are being 
made which will result in undoubted telegraphic commu- 
nication with the spirit world. The impression is, in my 
opinion, made upon the brain of what might be called the 
" operator " at this end of the line. It is certain that where 
people are not deluding themselves, or trifling, a loud 
noise, sometimes even a cough, or the movement of a 
chair, will put an end to the writing on the spot, and even 
cause the persons who hold the pencil to turn faint. 

That, by this pencil-writing, things occurring at a dis- 
tant place are sometimes communicated, I think I have 
proof. In one case, persons holding the pencil wrote this : 

" Poor M. Oh, dear ! She has fallen from her chair 
— some one must go to her or she will die. She has 
fainted. " Then, after a pause : " K says : 'Will she 
never come to ?' M has hurt her knee. She is uncon- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 49 

scious. She will get well, but K is frightened. K 
says : ' Oh, dear me ! Oh, dear me!'" 

I was present when two ladies received this com- 
munication. The original paper on which the words 
were written has come into my hands, and I copy it. 
There were four or five witnesses to the fact that it was 
written as I say. 

Full names were given, and the persons they be- 
longed to resided in Virginia, while the writers were in 
New York City. 

Two weeks later came a letter from " K," which con- 
tained an account of an accident which had occurred 
to the lady whose first name began with M — stating 
that, two weeks before the date at the head of the note 
paper, " M " had slipped down two steps that lead from 
a certain upper room into the passage. That she hurt 
her knee ; but, thinking the pain would pass, sat down 
in a rocking-chair and began to sew. However, the 
pain increased to such a degree that, before long, she 
fainted away, and must have been unconscious for some 
little time when the fact was discovered. 

" I thought that we should never bring her to herself," 
wrote " K " — u and her knee was very badly injured." 

Now, you may think me silly for not considering that 
a coincidence. I should think myself very foolish if 
it did not prove to me that — (excuse me, Shakespeare, 
I'll never do it again) 

" There are more things in Heaven and earth," than 
we have been in the habit of believing. For that I 
have not in any way embellished the story I have just 
told — I solemnly swear. 



ISO 



CHAPTER 13. 

COLONEL DEYER'S WELL. 

In August, 1892, the reports concerning a certain 
well on the property of Colonel Deyer, of Virginia, so 
interested the managers of the Herald, that they sent 
a special reporter to the spot to investigate the matter. 

This gentleman, having entered upon the work with 
the intention of exposing the fraud, became convinced 
that it was no fraud whatever, but a genuine phenome- 
non — and so reported in an exhaustive article in the 
Herald, which was afterward extensively copied. As I 
shall copy the communication, I need say nothing 
more just here than that Miss Lizzie Deyer, a daughter 
of Colonel Deyer, discovered, by mere accident, that 
by holding a mirror over the surface of the well, one 
could see arising from its depths, the faces of human 
beings, as well as curious objects of all sorts, and that 
the faces were recognized as those of the departed by 
many neighbors, and by thousands who poured in from 
all quarters to see the marvel for themselves. 

We discussed the matter in the family, and some of 
the gentlemen were of the opinion that it was simply a 
clever story, without foundation, in fact. I felt sure 
that this was not so, and took the liberty of writing to 
Colonel Deyer, telling him that I possessed all the natu- 
ral curiosity of a daughter of Eve, and could not re- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. IS I 

frain from asking how much of the wonderful tale was 
true. The result of my letter was a most courteous reply 
from Colonel Deyer, and also, a little later, a letter 
from Miss Deyer, which I give my readers as being 
valuable attestation from persons of refinement and 
education, as well as of good social position, to the 
truth of phenomena, which the great majority of read- 
ers would simply consider too absurd to believe. 

Handsom's Depot, Va., 

Kildare Manor, 
10-18-92. 
Mrs. Mary Kyle Dallas, 

My Dear Madame: 

Pardon delay in response to yours of the nth inst. 
A press of business and absence from home are my 
best excuses to so distinguished a lady as yourself. 

Now, as to the " haunted well," none of us consider 
it haunted, but merely a freak of nature, a phenomenon, 
if you please, but, frankly, beyond my ken or that of 
the thousands who have witnessed its more than 
strange antics. 

I assure you, the report in the Herald was not con- 
cocted in said Herald office, but was written by a Mr. 

H , a reporter of said paper. Said H was 

sent here by the Herald to investigate. I met him at 
Norfolk, Va., my old home. I was introduced to him 
by R. C. Murray, Esq., editor of the Norfolk Land- 
mark. I was questioned by a party of gentlemen in 

said Land-mark office, among whom was said H , 

who laughingly said he "would like to come down and 



152 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

expose the fraud." I gave him carte blanche, and in a 
few days, to my astonishment, down he came, and, lo ! 
as he stated, "the half had not been told." 

Now, I have no explanation to give — all my theories 
are exploded ; but the well is here, and has a solid 
foundation m fact, as well as a mystery in doubt. It is 
no advertising dodge — I have never charged a stiver to 
any one to look, and the well is not for sale, tho' I 
should be pleased to have some enterprising Yankee 
remove it, even to Chicago. 

I only wish I had time to give you a succinct acc't of 
all its doings, but time forbids ; however, if you should 
want a full description, my daughter, Lizzie Lee Deyer, 
if you wish to address her, will take pleasure in gratify- 
ing the curiosity of a daughter of Eve, she being 
closely allied to that noble degree. With many apolo- 
gies for this rambling scrawl, I remain with sentiments 
of highest esteem, 

Your ob't servant, &c, 

Jno. J. Deyer. 

Kildare Manor, 

Handsom's, Va. 
Mrs. Mary Kyle Dallas, 

Dear Madame: 

Your letter in reference to the "-well" was rec'd a 
few days ago, & I will gladly give you an account of 
same so far as I am capable. 

I have only one correction to make in the report which 
appeared in the N. Y. Herald ; that is : the mirror was 
held face to the water instead of back of mirror to water. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 53 

It is held perfectly flat over the surface of the water 
& sometimes it is half an hour or more before an object 
will appear, then again they will come faster than a 
person can count. 

Out of the thousands who have visited the " well," I 
have found only one (that a very old lady) that could 
see nothing. 

A friend of mine was here to see the "well," a day 
or so ago, & she called for a person to appear, & in less 
than two seconds his face was seen, life size & as natu- 
ral as I ever saw him look. I will say again, that the 
story in the N. Y. Herald was a true one & it would be 
impossible for me to give you a more definite account. 
Hoping you will pardon my delay in answering your 
letter, 

I am 

very sincerely, 

Lizzie Lee Deyer. 

a haunted well. 

[From the columns of the Sunday Herald, October, 1892.] 

There is something new under the sun. At all 
events, that's how it strikes most people who have seen 
it. It has been discovered at Kildare, Handsom's Sta- 
tion, Southampton County, Va., where, according to 
the proverb, truth is sometimes found at the bottom 
of a well. Third party politics and Colonel J. Deyer's 
well are close competitors for public attention in 
Southampton just now. Perhaps I should put Colo- 
nel Deyer's well first : for, after the election is over, the 



154 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

well will be the only thing talked about, as it was be- 
fore the conventions were held. It is good evidence 
of the remarkable nature of the well that it should di- 
vide interest with politics, for Virginia is one of the 
doubtful States, and feels her responsibility. 

Last May — to be precise, May 2 — the wonderful 
properties of the well were discovered, and its fame 
has been growing ever since. 

A few days ago, upward of three thousand people 
visited the well and saw all manner of uncanny things 
in it. They all swear they did, at any rate, and, what is 
more, believe what they say. I heard of the well in 
Norfolk, some fifty miles away, and was assured by Ex- 
Congressman George Bowden that he had seen the face 
of his father reflected in the water of the well in broad 
daylight. Mr. Kenton Murray, of Norfolk, who occu- 
pies the position of Secretary to Governor McKinney, 
told me that he had met and talked with a number of 
people who had visited Colonel Deyer's farm and had 
seen in the waters of the well the faces of relatives who 
were dead, coffins, and other things not pleasant to 
contemplate. Mr. S. S. Nottingham, the publisher of 
the Norfolk Landmark, confirmed the statements 
made by Mr. Murray and Colonel Bowden. 

HOW DISCOVERED. 

A few days afterward, I met Colonel Deyer, who, 
after awhile, reluctantly told me how the peculiar prop- 
erties of the well were discovered, and, evidently net- 
tled at my look of incredulity, said — " I shall be pleased 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 155 

to have the representative of the Herald come out to 
Kildare and investigate the matter thoroughly." 

PLAINLY VISIBLE. 

Colonel Deyer has a war record, too, and his title is 
a genuine one. For four years he fought on the Con- 
federate side and often in the thickest of the fray. I 
did not question his veracity ; but the old saying holds 
true, " seeing is believing/' and I at once resolved to 
see the well for myself. I took the Seaboard and Roa- 
noke Railroad from Norfolk, and devoted two days to 
an examination of the well. 

I arrived at Kildare after a drive of a mile through 
the woods, during all of which I was regaled with 
stories of the peculiar things the driver had seen in the 
well. At the station I had the same experience. The 
station agent and a helper were all witnesses to the un- 
canny things the well made visible. 

Colonel Deyer was not expecting me, because I had 
not telegraphed my arrival ; but he welcomed me, and, 
in response to my asking to be shown the well, at once 
called his daughter, and, together with his wife, we pro- 
ceeded to the well, which was situated about sixty feet 
from the house and off to one side. A colored servant, 
who stood near, looked in the well with us, and, as Miss 
Deyer held the mirror, he exclaimed : 

" Foah Gawd, dere's a bottle ! " 

" What kind of a bottle ? " I asked. 

" A green bottle wid silber on de top on it." 

He was right. Faintly gleaming on the surface of 



156 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

the water, but distinctly visible, I saw a champagne 
bottle appear and then mysteriously sink into the 
depths of the well. The rest of the party saw the 
same things. The bottle was only one of a hundred 
objects inanimate and animate that appeared on the 
surface of the well during the forty-eight hours I spent 
examining it. 

FICTION BEATEN. 

The sorcerer who summons up " spirits from the 
vasty deep," in fiction is discounted in this instance by 
a young Virginia beauty, who brought up flowers, 
jewels, bottles, coffins, visions of old ladies and young 
ones, venerable men and smooth-faced boys, hands 
with blood dripping from their wounds, bodies of dead 
men and women, and other queer sights that few, per- 
haps, will believe can be seen in the well, unless, as I 
did, they see them for themselves. 

But Miss Deyer is not the only person who causes 
faces and other things to be seen on the surface of the 
water. Others do it as well as she. That proves that 
it is not the girl who is haunted. 

It is a curious fact that the faces and objects which 
appear in the well can only be seen in the daylight, 
and, the brighter the sun is shining, the more distinct 
they become. In all the haunted houses, I remember, 
utter darkness was essential before the ghosts would 
condescend to roam around and clank chains and do 
other blood-curdling things. 

Colonel Deyer's well is just an ordinary well, such as 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 157 

you find on almost every farm in Virginia, similar in 
appearance to fifty-one other wells on the plantation. 
The other wells, however, will not reveal a face. I 
tried them all, and so have others. The causes that 
bring these curious shapes to the surface of the water 
in the " spook well/' whatever they may be, are miss- 
ing in all other wells on the farm. I cannot explain 
why it is so, but just have to give it up, as I did fifty 
theories that suggested themselves to me during the 
hours I spent peering down into the well, climbing 
down into the well and examining every inch of 
ground for mirrors and other devices known to trick- 
sters and so-called mediums. 

PASSING STRANGE. 

I left Kildare, considerably more astonished than 
when I arrived. The story of an old gentleman who, 
after listening to a tough yarn of which the narrator said, 
"it is true, I saw it myself," replied, "well, I must be- 
lieve it, then ; but I would not believe it if I saw it my- 
self," occurred to me. I saw the well myself ; I saw 
the things I have described therein ; but I am utterly 
unable to account for them. 

One of the faces was that of the old gentleman with 
a skull-cap. I saw it as distinctly as I have seen my 
own countenance in my mirror. 

"Dr. Tudor," said Mrs. Deyer, and "Dr. Tudor," 
echoed Miss Grace Petit, of Norfolk, one of the party 
engaged in looking in the well at the time. 

" Describe Dr. Tudor," I said. 



158 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

She gave me a description of him, which, in the most 
minute particulars, corresponded to the face that ap- 
peared in the well. 

Imagination plays a large part in these sort of sights, 
and to make sure that what I saw was not influenced by 
the exclamations of people about the well, I had the 
group write on a piece of paper a description of what 
each member saw in the well. 

There was a startling correspondence between them 
all. 

" I see a white coffin "; " I see an old man looking at 
a white coffin "; " I see a coffin and an old man," were 
the words they wrote. What I saw was a white coffin, 
with a figure of an old man looking down into it. In a 
minute, the coffin passed away from the shadow on the 
water, and Miss Petit said : 

" I wish it would come back with the lid off." 

" Look ! " screamed Mrs. Deyer There was the 
coffin, with the elliptical lid off, and under the glass 
could be distinguished the face and shoulder of a young 
girl. The sight was too much for the nerves of Miss 
Petit, and, with a little sigh and a shudder, she sank 
fainting to the ground. 

All this time Miss Deyer had been holding the glass. 
I took it and, holding the back of the mirror toward 
the water, awaited developments. Then a hand, hold- 
ing a Calla lily, rose from the bottom of the well and 
remained in sight a full minute. 

They were not such " pictures" as imaginative 
people can see in a wood-fire, or in clouds, but much 
more definite. 



LOTS OF FACES. 1 59 

During that afternoon, a great many faces appeared. 
Once, the back of a negro man, who had apparently 
been flogged, with the gashes bleeding, was the spec- 
tacle presented. There was something very peculiar 
about some of these visions. I noticed, for instance, 
that the head and shoulders of a man or woman would 
appear in one position, go away and re-appear again in 
half a dozen different positions. A profile view would 
be presented, a rear view, a front view, and top view, 
even. It seemed as if a recognition was eagerly 
sought. I noticed that the flesh generally exhibited the 
peculiar appearance presented by the skin of drowned 
people. 

Miss Deyer, who has acted as medium for most of 
the people who have visited the well, scouts the idea 
that she alone can get the phantom faces in the well, 
and I fancy she is right. 

I noticed that, when Miss Petit acted as medium, her 
hands trembled so that nothing could be distinguished. 

The use of a mirror might lead some to suppose the 
pictures seen in the water were reflections from objects 
lying about the ground or place. I thought so, too, un- 
til I held the mirror below the edge of the square box 
that surrounds the well, totally shutting everything 
outside of it, and still the aquatic visions appeared. I 
thought perhaps it was the mirror that did the trick, so 
I procured a piece of window-glass and covered it with 
dark cloth, and went to the well at eight o'clock in the 
morning and tried it with the same results. The morn- 
ing experiment was private. 

As Colonel Deyer's story of the well is the best one, 



l6o THE FREED SPIRIT. 

I repeat it as he told it in the presence of Mr. Murray, 
Mr. Blain and Mr. Nottingham. 

" The first of last May," said Colonel Deyer, " our 
house servant, Susan, said to my daughter, Miss Lizzie, 
* you know, Miss Lizzie, if you takes a looking-glass on 
the first of May and goes to the well and holds the 
mirror over the well, back down, the face of your future 
husband will appear on the surface of the water.' 

" That is an old superstition in Virginia, you know. 
Mrs. Deyer and Miss Lizzie laughed at the notion and 
dismissed it from their minds. The following day, 
Monday, however, Susan started to the well to draw a 
pail of water at noon, when Miss Lizzie picked up a 
mirror and followed her. Laughing, at the time, at 
what she regarded as the absurdity of the thing, she 
held the mirror in the position indicated, and Susan 
looked into the depths of the well at the same time. 
In an instant, she and her mother declare, they saw a 
hand wearing a diamond ring steal across the patch of 
shadow thrown on the surface of the water by the face 
of the mirror, and, in alarm, Miss Lizzie dropped the 
glass into the well. They fished the mirror out, and 
spent that afternoon holding the mirror over the well, 
and saw a number of things — faces of people, flowers 
and a beautiful white casket. 

COULD FIND NO EXPLANATION. 

" I was away from home at the time, in Richmond, 
and, when I returned, a few days later, my wife and 
daughter told me of the occurrence. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" I laughed at the story, exactly as you gentlemen 
are doing now, but did not laugh when, that afternoon, 
my daughter took the mirror, and, proceeding to the 
well, held it in the position described and bade me 
look. In a minute or so, a shadowy something ap- 
peared on the surface of the water, apparently rising 
from the bottom of the well, and I distinctly recognized 
the face of a neighbor who had been dead for two 
years. I looked around to see if my wife and daughter 
were playing tricks on me, but saw they were just as 
much startled as myself. All that afternoon I spent 
looking in the well and saw a number of objects. I 
am not superstitious and I do not believe in spirits, so 
I tried to find a natural explanation of the things I 
found in the well. Every theory that I advanced was 
in turn exploded, and I am just as much in the dark to- 
day as I was six months ago. 

" The negroes about the place spread the story in 
the neighborhood, and the neighbors began to come 
to see the well, and from them the news of the queer 
sights to be seen got carried all about — over into North 
Carolina, for instance — until, lately, people drive from 
miles around, some coming a distance of fifty miles 
just to see the faces and things in the well. All this is 
a great source of annoyance to me, for the well is the 
one situated nearest the house, and we have not lived 
in comfort since the facts about the well got out." 

Colonel Deyer told the story in a way that impressed 
me with his entire truthfulness and sincerity. He evi- 
dently believed what he said. If there was any humbug 
about the well, he was no party to it. 



1 62 WHAT THE WELL* IS LIKE. 

The well itself is the one, as stated before, that sup- 
plies the household with drinking water ; it is supplied 
with water by eight springs and generally has about 
eight or ten feet of water in it. When I was there, the 
depth of water measured just ten feet ; above that to 
the top of the well the distance was twenty-two feet ; 
the diameter of the well is three and a half feet. So 
clear is the water that the white sand bottom can be 
plainly seen when the sun is shining. I saw the bot- 
tom distinctly, and noted a few things that had fallen 
into it. The well has been cleaned every year, and the 
time for cleaning the well is at hand now ; but, Colonel 
Deyer says — " if that well is cleaned, I will have to do 
it myself. There is not a servant on the plantation 
that will go near that well alone, and, as to going in it, 
no money would induce them to make the venture/' 

As I drove away, the owner of Virginia's sensation 
said — " if you meet any skeptical people, send them 
along ; I shall be only too glad to meet the person who 
will clear up the mystery." 

Here seems to be an opportunity for the Society of 
Psychical Research. 



163 



CHAPTER 14. 

THE STORY OF MRS. V. 

There once resided in the City of New York one 
Mrs. V, a lady of vigorous mind, capable and practical, 
a widow, at the head of a family of sons and daughters, 
for many years. She has but recently departed this 
life, and I knew her to the last. Her disease was con- 
sumption ; it in no way interfered with her mental 
powers. To the last, she was capable of managing her 
own affairs, was actually conscious until the moment of 
dissolution and tried to comfort her children by smiles 
and motions of her hand after she was unable to speak 
— the last person to suspect of hallucinations or freaks 
of the imagination, and in no one of her many illnesses 
was she ever, for a moment, delirious. I tell you this 
to give its full weight to the following anecdote. 

Young Henry G was a near neighbor of the 

family, and regarded by them as almost one of them- 
selves. They took a great interest in him, and he was 
very fond of Mrs. V, who took the place his lost mother 
would have held in his life. 

For some years after reaching manhood and entering 
into business, Henry gave his friends reason to hope 
the best for him ; but, in a moment of weakness or 
temptation, he betrayed a pecuniary trust. According 
to the young man's explanation, it was the old story 



164 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

of borrowing money, with the intention of returning it 
before the loss was discovered ; but his crime was de- 
tected at once, and, though his employer was lenient 
and did not cause his arrest, he was dismissed without 
reference, and lost true and kind friends, who would 
have advanced his interests. 

To the V family, he confided the whole truth, and, 
while they blamed, they were as kind as possible. 

About this time, Mrs. V was taken very ill and con- 
fined to her room, and on Sunday, when Henry came 
to the house, was not able to see him. He himself 
seemed ill and in a strange state, and the young V's, 
who, naturally, supposed his stupefied manner to be the 
result of the trouble he had brought upon himself, 
were obliged to help him home to his boarding place. 
They were inexperienced and did not observe how 
really ill he was. 

The next morning he was found dead in his bed, 
and the physicians declared that he died of a slow 
poison, which he must already have taken when he 
visited his friends, the Vs. 

He had spoken of death as a release from misery, 
and there could be no doubt that he had deliberately 
committed suicide. 

These events caused much sorrow in the V family, 
and Mrs. V regretted that she had not been able to 
talk to Henry on those terrible last days of his life, as 
she might have given him a little hope and comfort, 
and, perhaps, have prevented the commission of the 
last fatal deed. 

It was before the day of the young man's funeral, 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 165 

that Mrs. V's daughter entered her mother's room, 
and found her awake and somewhat agitated. 

" Henry G has been here, my dear," she said. 

" Why, mother, have you forgotten that Henry is 
dead ? " the girl inquired, in some alarm. 

" Not at all," Mrs. V answered, "but in spite of that 
he has been here — he came and stood by my bed — 
' Mrs. V,' he said, ' I have come to bid you good-bye, 
and to ask for a lock of your hair to take with me/ 
I was not at all frightened. ' Henry,' I answered, l how 
could you take a lock of my hair into the grave with 
you ? ' He smiled : ' it is only my body that will be in 
the grave,' he said : ' but I want you always to be sure 
that I came to you — that this was not a dream — so I 
will take a larger piece of hair than you would willingly 
give me.' He put his finger on my head and marked 
a large space on the right side. ' In two days you 
will not have a hair there,' he said, 'and now I want 
you to do some things for me ' — so and so — mentioning 
the name of his fellow boarder — ' has stolen my watch ; 
he has pawned it, and carries the ticket about his person. 

1 In my wardrobe closet is a little trunk full of 
clothing ; you will find the key of the trunk in the 
pocket of my gray vest. 

1 Unlock it, and, hidden beneath everything else, you 
will find a pocket-book. In one side are memoranda 
of debts I owe ; in the other, of sums of money that 
are owed to me. If some one will collect the latter, 
the former may be paid with the amount and the price 
the watch w T ill bring.' He then went on to assure me 
that he was not as bad as people thought him, and did 



1 66 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

not mean to become a thief, etc., etc. — after which he 
laid his hand upon my head again, and went away." 

The daughter listened as most daughters would, 
without believing. But she did not try to convince 
her mother that she had had a dream, for her fears 
pointed to delirium. The doctor's verdict, however, 
was that nothing of the sort was to be apprehended, 
and when, the next day, the hair fell from Mrs. V's 
head, in precisely the spot which she declared the 
ghostly finger had outlined, the family at last began to 

believe that Henry G had visited their mother, 

and the eldest son began to investigate the other mat- 
ters. Taking authority into his own hands, he went to 
his friend's late residence — the funeral not yet having 
taken place — found that his watch had disappeared, 
and instantly interviewed the fellow boarder who had 
been indicated as having stolen the watch. 

" I would like to have the ticket " — he said, without 
preface. 

" What ticket ? " the young man inquired. 

" The pawn-ticket for Henry G's watch," V replied. 
The other put his hand into his vest pocket, and handed 
him a pawn-ticket. Young V then made search for the 
key, found it, discovered the trunk, of which he knew 
nothing, found it filled with such garments as had been 
spoken of in the vision, and in the bottom the pocket- 
book, in which the records described were arranged in 
the two different divisions spoken of. He then pro- 
ceeded to collect the debts, dispose of the watch and 
apply the proceeds to the purpose which had been in- 
dicated in the vision. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 167 

Two or three times, while this was being done, Mrs. 
V averred that Henry, apparently the same as in life, 
came to her bed-side, and stood there, simply looking 
at her, calmly and pleasantly. I believe he did not 
speak again. The spot whence the hair had fallen re- 
mained bald for some time, but was at last covered. 

This tale was told me in perfect good faith and I 
know all the members of the V family well. They are 
averse to being considered superstitious, and I was 
obliged to promise to withhold their names if I used 
this story. 

The daughter who gave me the particulars, also 
told me that once, upon a time — her mother being ab- 
sent in Europe — she dreamed she saw her ill and 
seated in a chair, with a large quilt folded over her 
knees, an elderly woman in attendance upon her, and 
heard her say : 

"Ah! if my child were here, she would know just 
what to do for me." 

Writing to her mother, she mentioned this dream ; 
but a letter from the latter lady crossed her own, in 
which appeared these words : " I have been very ill, in- 
deed, and Bridget (mentioning a person the daughter 
had never seen) did her best. But how I wanted you. 
The other day, as I sat shivering before the fire, with a 
quilt spread over my knees to warm them, I said to 
her — ' ah ! if my child were here, she would know just 
what to do for me/ " 

The words were the same Miss V had heard in her 
dream. 

The mother said "my child," not "my daughter," 



1 68 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

which would have seemed more natural, as Miss V was 
the only girl in the family of brothers, and had attained 
the years of womanhood. So it was in the dream. 

Again, this young lady dreamed, one night, that on 
that day, at a certain hour, her father's mother departed 
this life. 

A memorandum of the hour was made, and the fact 
was that the death, which was not expected, had oc- 
curred at the precise time indicated in the dream. 

extract from a letter. 

Jan. 94. 

" Don't you want a bit of occult news ? At least, I 
want to tell you what happened to me on my way from 
St. Louis, going south-west. 

" I do not know just where we were ; but it was in 
the early morning — every one in good spirits, lots of 
talk, none of the dullness usual to car journeys. The 
weather was the cause, I suppose — bright, after a 
long spell of rain — but, certainly, the gayety of the pas- 
sengers was markedly noticeable, 

" Only one person in our car seemed ' out of it.' 
This was a man who lay with his head back, his eyes 
half open and his hands dropped on the cushions. 

" As time passed, I heard one or two people exchange 
remarks about him. A lady said that he looked as if 
he were very ill. A man, of course, declared that he 
was intoxicated, and a girl giggled to another 'he's 
putting it on — thinks we'll admire him in that attitude.' 

" I, myself, thought I would keep an eye on him, for 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 169 

it looked' to me as though he were in a very strange 
condition. 

" Suddenly, however, without a word of warning, he 
started up, caught the rope that connects with the 
engineer's bell and snapped it, evidently giving the 
proper signal, for the train began to slow up, and 
stopped. 

" Those in our car who knew that the man had rung 
the bell, began to cry out : ' what is the matter ? ' — 
' why did you do that ? ' and some to swear at him, or 
call him ' drunk ' or ' crazy.' 

" Excitement ran through the train, for the cars had 
stopped very suddenly and shaken people up, and the 
conductor, coming to make inquiry, inquired of the 
man — ' come, now ; don't you think you are a little too 
old to play tricks of this sort ? ' 

" The stranger, however, standing pale and grave be- 
fore him, sternly answered — ' man, I stopped the train 
because we were rushing on to death. Send a party 
around the curve and you'll find the bridge down — I saw 
it down.' 

"JTis tone impressed some of his traveling compan- 
ions, and just then two gentlemen came in from the 
smoker, who seemed to be his friends. They began to 
insist on an investigation, and the feeling spread 
through the car. 

" ' Warnings have been given,' said one old man, who 
looked like a farmer ; ' I guess it is so this time.' 

" Consequently, many of the passengers followed the 
trainmen who were sent to see into the matter, and, 
having turned a curve that the train would have 



I70 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

rounded in less than one minute, found, just beyond it, 
a chasm between two precipices, which had been span- 
ned by a bridge. The bridge, however, was now down, 
and at the speed at which the train was going, it must 
have rushed into it with the usual frightful results. 

" And, now, every one desired to thank the man they 
had abused and laughed at. But it seemed that he had 
gone off into a swoon, and his friends would not allow 
him to be disturbed. In fact, the bridge had been re- 
paired and we were off again before he seemed to be 
himself — and then would or could offer no explana- 
tion, saying only : 

" ' I knew it, somehow ; I saw it. Of course, I had 
the train stopped — that's all there is to it.' 

A. W." 



i7i 



CHAPTER 15. 

THE ANXIOUS MOTHER. 
[As narrated to me by Fraulein Christine Hillern.] 

In Frankfort dwelt, until recently, the lady whose 
story I shall now repeat. Her name w T as Christine 
Hillern, and she lived at home with her parents. 

She was a very pleasing girl in every way, and, by 
nature, conscientious to the last degree. Her good 
qualities are plainly stamped upon her features and 
shine forth from her brilliant hazel eyes. She was, 
moreover, very religious, and constant in her attend- 
ance at church — she was a Lutheran. 

As she sat, each Sunday, in her father's pew, she had, 
for many months, remarked the peculiar and earnest 
gaze which a lady, who occupied a place not far from 
her's, continually fixed upon her. 

This lady she knew to be a Mrs. Jehn, wife of a re- 
spectable merchant of the place. She was invariably 
escorted by her husband, and a little boy and two little 
girls followed her up the aisle. 

The gaze was gentle, kindly and almost loving, but 
its persistence was embarrassing. It seemed as if Mrs. 
Jehn was unable to remove her eyes from Christine's 
face, and, at last, one Sunday, as they came together in 
the church aisle, the matron touched the young lady 



172 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

on the arm and begged her to ask her mother's per- 
mission to call on her on a day and at an hour which 
she named. The young lady promised that she would, 
and Mrs. Jehn returned to her husband's side. 

Christine, for her part, began to feel a great attrac- 
tion toward this matron, so many years her senior, and 
Mrs. Hillern, willingly permitting her daughter to ac- 
cept the invitation, for the Jehn's were known to be 
people of the best position. She began to be anxious 
for the period of her visit to arrive. 

On the chosen day, having taken some pains with 
her toilette, and feeling pleased to think that she 
looked her best, Christine proceeded to the residence 
of the Jehn's and was ushered into the ladies' presence. 
Courtesies were exchanged, coffee and cakes were of- 
fered, the matron made many complimentary remarks, 
and, without flattering the young girl coarsely, showed 
an appreciation of her character and appearance that 
could not fail to be pleasing to the listener — since she 
seemed to know not only all she accomplished, but all 
she strove to be — to have an inner knowledge of her 
aspirations which amounted to mind-reading. 

Before the guest took her leave, the hostess asked 
one question ; it was this : 

" Will you tell me, Miss Christine Hillern, whether 
you are betrothed, or whether your parents have their 
minds set upon your marriage with any one in par- 
ticular ? " 

To this Christine replied, frankly, that she was en- 
tirely free ; that she knew of no one she could possibly 
like well enough to marry, and that she felt that she 



THE FREED SPIRIT, 1 73 

would prefer a single life to any other. The lady 
smiled. 

" At least, you have not chosen a husband," she said ; 
" we will stop there. Surely, when a good man offers 
himself, you will think better of your idea of being a 
spinster." 

She then kissed Christine, and begged her to come 
again in three days' time, and on no account to disap- 
point her. 

Miss Hillern assented, and kept her promise. This 
time, after the coffee had been handed, the hostess 
begged her to come with her to her bedroom, and, 
locking the door, sat down beside her and took her 
hand. Her face was very sad and tears stood in her eyes. 

" Miss Hillern," she said, " I am about to startle you 
very much — I am about to propose an alliance to you. 

" The man is rich — I think him handsome — he is one 
who leads an upright life and who will be attentive to 
you. Would you feel averse to becoming the wife of 
a widower with three children ? " 

Miss Hillern, too much astonished to reply, could 
only look at Mrs. Jehn, who went on : 

" You have seen the gentleman — he is my husband." 

For a moment the young lady fancied that her new 
friend was insane ; but she went on more calmly : 

" Miss Christine, you see before you a dying woman 
— I may lie in this room^ in my coffin, within three 
days. To-morrow an operation will be performed, un- 
der which I may die. If successful, I shall probably 
live a year and a half. I cannot expect a longer life 
than that, but I do pray, earnestly, to be left to my 



174 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

children so long. When I am gone, I wish my husband 
to marry as soon as public opinion will permit. The 
children must have a good mother — I have watched 
you carefully — I know you will be all to them that any 
one but myself can be, and I have selected you. Mr. 
Jehn admires you, and I have told him what I wish — 
in fact, if you assent, it is accomplished. Will you 
give me your promise to do as I wish ? " 

On this, a sort of horror filled the girl's soul, and she 
cried out to Mrs. Jehn to stop. 

" Do you know what you say ? " she exclaimed. " You 
are speaking to me of another woman's husband as a 
future lover. It is horrible ! indecent ! You may live 
after all ! how can you ? " 

Mrs. Jehn began to weep violently. 

" I have no sister," she sobbed, " no mother, no fe- 
male relative. I shall be obliged to leave the world, 
knowing that my little ones will be ill-used by a cruel 
step-mother. Oh ! the peace you would give me, were 
you to promise to care for my little ones. 

" I shall not even be able to go to Heaven — I shall 
be earth-bound — obliged to witness their sufferings 
without being able to help them." 

Finally, she grew so ill that Miss Hillern was alarmed, 
and, at last, she said — " I will never marry Mr. Jehn ; 
but I will promise you that if you die, I will do all that 
your own sister would for the children — watch over 
them, see that they are properly taught and cared for, 
and that their moral and religious duties are not ne- 
glected." 

Finally, Mrs. Jehn grew calm and thanked her. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 75 

A very painful and dangerous operation actually 
was performed next day. Mrs. Jehn survived it, and, 
to a stranger, seemed afterward to be in perfect health. 
But the doctor's verdict was unchanged. From that 
moment, Christine Hillern, with the devotion of a 
Sister of Charity, assisted her friend in the care of her 
children, learned her views and methods and won their 
love. The mother lingered somewhat longer than the 
period indicated by the doctors ; but, before two years 
had gone, she had passed away. 

Meanwhile, an indescribably perfect friendship had 
grown up between Miss Hillern and herself, and they 
read each other's very hearts. No one was surprised 
when one, so intimate with the household, still devoted 
herself to the interests of the three motherless children, 
and " Aunt Christine " w r asthe being on whom the little 
ones depended most for love and consolation. 

The widower grieved sincerely ; but, one day, he made 
an offer to Christine, who declined it. In the course of 
a few years he offered himself three times, and seemed 
to have fallen seriously in love with Miss Hillern. 

This made it rather unpleasant for her to perform 
her duties to the little ones ; but she continued them 
until the widower put an end to the possibility of do- 
ing so, by marrying another woman. 

The new wife frowned upon Mrs. Jehn's old friend, 
and played the traditional role of the step-mother to 
the full extent. 

Finally, the family removed to America, and, though 
Miss Hillern still wrote to the boy " Albert " for some 
time, the step-mother soon intercepted the letters. 



iy6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

found in those of her husband's son complaints of her 
cruel usage and the unhappiness of his home, and put 
a stop to the correspondence. 

Now comes in the ghostly portion of the narrative, as 
related by Miss Hillern. 

Some years had passed by. One Sabbath evening, 
Miss Hillern sat at the open window of her bedroom. 
The night was deliciously sweet and bright, and she 
had lit no lamp. 

She was in a mood for reverie, and her thoughts 
were of her dead friend, Mrs. Jehn, and with the chil- 
dren, whom she so dearly loved. She could not wish 
that she had married the widower ; but, she said to her- 
self, that if she had been able to overcome her repug- 
nance to such a step, Albert, Hedwig and Annie 
would surely have been happier. She could have been 
a true mother to them, for her whole heart was theirs. 
Then she said to herself that Albert was now a young 
man, and perhaps able to care for his sisters. She 
hoped he had done so. 

It was at this moment that an impression was made 
upon her mind, which it is impossible to put into 
words. It was as though a mere veil interposed be- 
tween herself and some scene of dissipation — what was 
to her appreciation a hideous orgy. 

With it came the thought of Albert. 

The impression was brief, but terrible — what it meant 
she could not comprehend — it left her quite unnerved 
and very sorrowful. 

As she leaned back, with closed eyes, her thoughts 
still bent on Albert, she heard a soft, rustling sound — to 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 177 

use her own words : " as of a very light and graceful per- 
son, clothed in a robe of gossamer, who could walk 
without a footfall. Such a person was not to be found 
within the house, so I kept my eyes closed — when, 
closer to me, I once more heard the soft sounds, and, 
looking up, saw a tall, slender figure gliding into my 
room. It wore a floating robe of great length and full- 
ness, no more substantial than tulle. It passed near 
me, floated away again, returned and seated itself op- 
posite me, and I recognized my dead friend, Mrs. Jehn. 
I desired to greet her, but felt that if I spoke she would 
vanish. She seemed to understand me without words, 
but at last she spoke to me. 

" ' Where is Albert ? ' she asked, in a voice of inde- 
scribable sweetness, so soft and low, not like any human 
voice. 

" Again I tried to impress upon her my grief that I 
did not know. Then her face assumed the expression 
it had worn when she told me she must die and leave 
her children. She sat there in silence for awhile — my 
eyes never left her face. Finally, she vanished. " 

Miss Hillern then went on to tell me that in a few 
days she received a letter from Albert. He wrote that, 
as he sat by the window of his room on that same Sun- 
day night, thoughts of his dear, departed mother came 
to him. Her image arose before him so vividly that 
he could almost imagine her present, and with it came 
a thought of Miss Hillern, " Aunt Christine, " as he 
called her, and he sent her his address, hoping for one 
of the " old, kind, affectionate letters." 

Miss Hillern, in this way, learned the young man's 



178 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

whereabouts, and so impressed was she by what she 
firmly believes to have been the visit of her friend's spirit, 
that she had the courage to write as a mother would to 
a son who had plunged into a vortex of dissipation. 

His reply proved that this was so, and she told him 
what she had seen on that Sunday evening. 

" Your mother cannot rest in Heaven until she knows 
that you will meet her there," she said, and the boy, 
greatly impressed, and deeply moved, promised re- 
formation, and kept his word. 

He is now an exemplary citizen, happily married, 
and able to shelter his sisters under his own roof. 

" It is a proof," Miss Hillern says, "that a mother 
will even leave her home in the city beyond the skies 
for the sake of her children." 

Of each mortal's own nature is born his occult ex- 
periences, colored by individual habit of thought 
and belief. Only a woman like Miss Christine Hillern 
would so have interpreted the motive of the ghostly 
visitant. But this gives us no reason for doubting the 
tale. 

I have an idea that the Freed Spirit and the spirit 
still resident in the mortal frame are both needed to 
complete a vision of any importance. 

Who can read the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, 
and dare to call him either madman or liar ? But we 
all know that no plain, uneducated Methodist would 
have had such visions as his. 

It might have been given the good man to have his 
spiritual sight opened, but he would not have seen the 
same sort of thing at all. 



THE FREED SPIRIT, 1 79 

We make our own spiritual experiences here — so it 
may be through eternity. 

To Miss Hillern came the charge to lead a stray lamb 
into the fold. To others, a simple " I love you" ; " I 
wait for you — we will meet again," suffices. Again, 
there are people who only receive these visitations in 
the interests of real estate and portable property. 

When an old gentleman, who has outlived all his 
dear ones, believes that he sees their forms beside 
him, or even that he can communicate with them by 
feeing trance-mediums and slate-writers, the lawyers 
find this an excellent reason for assisting his second 
cousins to take away his property and shut him up in 
a " retreat." But, curiously enough, there are many 
well-authenticated stories of lawyers, lawyers* clerks, 
and even judges, who have dreamed dreams in which 
the whereabouts of valuable documents have been 
revealed, and who have seen the spirits of departed 
clients at their bedsides at the dead of night : Spirits 
who have come to tell them where to find a missing 
will — and who have condescended to search in the 
places indicated by the vision, with most satisfactory 
results. 

The average legal mind can act in unison with a 
spirit who returns to earth for such a purpose, and is 
not in the least ashamed of having such a vision. Nor 
have I ever heard of a lawyer believing himself unable 
to manage other people's affairs because of an hallu- 
cination of this sort. 

It is the Italian, ready for the vendetta, or the French- 
man who is a practiced duelist, to whom the form of 



l8o THE FREED SPIRIT. 

his friend appears, touching the wounds in his breast, 
whispering, " avenge me." 

Spirits at least know how to put the right man in the 
right place. 

The devout Catholic is requested in his dream, or 
vision, to have masses said for the soul that cannot 
rest until this has been done. Who ever heard of a 
departed spirit going to a Quaker for this object, even 
to a Protestant ? — though they have visited the latter 
frequently, in order to have their bodies properly 
buried, with a neat tombstone overhead, instead of ly- 
ing doubled up under the cellar stairs. 

Those who had an interest in funerals, while living, 
no doubt felt some in the other state — at least for a time. 

" The ruling passion, strong in death," may be strong 
after it. 

A hundred odd years ago, a gay Lothario, who had 
" wronged a maid " and driven her to suicide, was sure 
to see her reproachful ghost. I have no doubt that he 
did ; certainly he deserved to do so. 

TWO PICTURES OF HEAVEN. 

Preachers understand, or should, that the same spirit- 
ual appeal will not move all men. 

The man who wishes to thrill his audience will be 
careful to discover to what manner of people he is 
speaking before he opens his lips. To some he talks 
of a Heaven where love abides and we shall see our 
dear ones. To others of palaces and gardens of roses 
— such as never bloom on earth. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. l8l 

I had, one Sunday morning, heard something beauti- 
ful of this sort from one who had a wonderful com- 
mand of language, and who described the Heaven of 
his hopes and dreams in a magnificent church, with 
painted windows and cushioned pews. His congrega- 
tion was made up of people who were daily surrounded 
by beautiful objects, who had most of them traveled 
and seen all that the world has of the lovely and mar- 
velous. It was necessary to make his Heaven very, 
very wonderful, exquisitely lovely, to fire their imagina- 
tions ; but he did it. Poets listened ; artists saw the 
picture before them ; tender-hearted women wept ; 
sensuous eyes sparkled. The man did what he pleased 
with his listeners, and the best of it was, it all came 
from his heart — to him Heaven was like that, probably 
will be. It was rather oriental, and I think my Heaven 
will be a little plainer, with a quiet corner in it here 
and there, and more moonlight. But it was exceed- 
ingly beautiful. I went, that very afternoon, to hear 
some preaching in a tent. It was a woman who spoke 
that day, a large, broad-shouldered person, neither 
well-educated nor well-informed. She was not always 
grammatical ; but all the better for that could she bring 
herself en rappcrt with her audience — principally hard- 
working women, in shabby gowns and cheap hats, 
washerwomen, janitresses, who had to stretch their sin- 
fully small wages to cover bread and meat, fire and 
rent for a large family of small children, and helpless 
old people. But they were self-respecting folk for all 
that, as people who go to church usually are. 

The preacher, who stood on the platform, dressed in 



1 82 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

black silk and a widow's cap, with a voice that filled 
every corner of the great tent, pleased them well. 
Sometimes she made them wipe away a tear or two ; 
sometimes they hid smiles behind their handkerchiefs, 
when she said "such true things" about men staying 
away from church or scolding over late dinner, and at 
last she began to talk of Heaven. 

"Why, sisters ! " she shouted, "I shall go before 
some of you, that is certain, and when you get there I 
want you to come and see me — right off — come and 
take tea. I mean to build my house at the corner of 
Glory street and Hallelujah avenue ; anybody will show 
you the way. Walk right in ; the door will always be 
open — wide open, sisters, everybody welcome, enough 
to eat and drink for all. I shall expect you ; we'll all be 
there, sisters, glory !" For one moment I laughed ; 
then I was disgusted. Then I looked at the faces 
about me, and saw so many radiant with hope, covered 
with smiles, that my mood changed. The preacher had 
drawn a picture of Heaven that seemed very beautiful 
to these tired souls. No more washing, no more scrub- 
bing, no more counting of pennies — a perpetual state of 
holiday tea-drinking. And then they would all be there : 
lost mothers and fathers ; John, who came courting so 
long ago ; the baby, who pined away and withered in 
the cradle — they realized it all, and joined in the shout 
of "glory." And when the singing band began the 
hymn — " There's a Mansion in Heaven for Me " — 
everybody sang, and there was no one to tell them 
they made discords, or that a lovelier picture might be 
drawn of Paradise than their cheerful, loud-voiced 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 83 

preacher in the widow's cap had placed before them. 
They would no more have comprehended the morn- 
ing's sermon than they could have understood Wagner's 
music, or admired the greatest masterpiece of the 
greatest painter. They had their congregational sing- 
ing, and liked the chromo of " the Little Girl with the 
Kitten" — on the wails at home — the one given with 
their pound of tea, for the sentiments conveyed, not 
for art's sake. And their Heaven had no art in it, 
either, only peace and re-union of dear ones. The rest 
they would, one day, learn. 

THE CASE OF MRS. ROGER BLACK. 

A Mr. Roger Black, a plain man, living in Kentucky, 
had just paid for a small house, which he had hitherto 
rented, and, returning home, told his wife, showed her 
the receipt for the sum — two thousand dollars — though 
more regular papers were to be made out next day, 
and, as far as she knew, he then went at once to his 
stable, where, some hours later, he was found dead, hav- 
ing been kicked in the head by a horse. 

When the first horror was over, and Mr. Black's 
funeral had taken place, the widow naturally looked 
for the receipt, but could not find it. Having incau- 
tiously mentioned this fact, the person who had sold the 
property denied having received any money from Mr. 
Black, and insinuated that Mrs. Black uttered a false- 
hood when she declared that her husband had done 
more than talk about buying the place. In proof of 
this, he showed a document, only half completed, and 



1 84 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

declared that Black had said : "let it wait until I think 
it over " — and that, for his part, he had been very will- 
ing to wait. 

The widow naturally fought for her rights, but had 
no case. 

She had no witnesses, and the lawyer who had the 
interests of the other side in charge brought witnesses 
to prove that Mrs. Black was the victim of hallucina- 
tions — thought that her mother's spirit sat at her bed- 
side when she was ill, and had held spiritual circles at 
her house. Believing in an alleged medium, who was 
afterward exposed, and in warnings of Mr. Black's 
death, in the shape of raps on her head-board. 

People who could not believe Mrs. Black capable of 
trying to defraud anyone, readily leaned to the idea 
that she was the victim of delusion, and the poor 
woman, who could not prove the truth of her state- 
ment to anyone, was also aggrieved by being supposed 
insane. 

The night before the decision took place, she gave 
up all hope and went early to bed, taking her two little 
ones with her. 

She could not sleep, but lay there weeping, wonder- 
ing how she could feed her children, from whom their 
hard-earned home was to be wrested. There was a 
public clock not far away, and she heard it strike, nine — 
ten — eleven — at last twelve — then, weary with her sor- 
rowful vigil, her eyes closed. 

She lay in a deep and heavy slumber, when she was 
aroused by heavy blows upon her outer door. As she 
was alone in the little house, she felt alarmed, and, 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 185 

pushing up the window, leaned out and asked who was 
there. 

To her surprise, the voice of the lawyer who was 
working against her replied : 

" It is I — come down, Mrs. Black ; I must speak to 
you." 

Accordingly, she dressed and went to the door. In 
the cold, gray dawn, they stood there together, and she 
saw that something moved him strongly. 

" Mrs. Black," he said, at last, " to-night, as I lay in bed, 
I thought that your late husband came into my room, 
and stood looking at me. I do not believe in such 
things as apparitions, you know ; but I could not fancy 
it a delusion when he spoke — ' you are helping that man 
to rob my wife,' he said ; ' I did pay him the money. 
We were to have a lawyer make out papers next day. 
I showed wife the receipt and then put it in my 
mother's old bureau, up garret, where I keep other 
papers, in the secret drawer — get it.' 

" Then," said the lawyer, " a light by which I saw 
him, faded — I got up and came to you." The widow 
shook her head — " I am afraid you have been having 
hallucinations now," she said; " poor Roger never 
would have put the receipt there. To be sure, there 
is a secret drawer — I will go and see — come up." 

She led the way up to the garret, in the corner of 
which stood a broken, old bureau. There was a so- 
called secret drawer between two manifest ones. She 
touched the spring — a number of yellow papers lay 
there and some Daguerreotypes. Amongst them was 
a large, white envelope. 



1 86 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" That is it ! " Mrs. Black cried, drew it forth, opened 
it, and — behold ! the receipt. 

" Mrs. Black, you have but to bring that receipt to 
court to-morrow," the lawyer said, slowly; "my client 
is a rascal. 

" If I may ask you a favor — it is this — that you will 
keep the secret of my vision, it would greatly injure 
me to have it known. But I do not think that you 
are anxious for revenge ? " 

Mrs. Black held out her hand to him. 

" You have done me a good turn by coming here," 
she said, " and I promise." 

" I wonder my poor husband went to you — I should 
have thought he'd come to me instead — but you acted 
right, and I'll never tell." 

She never did, while the lawyer lived. After he 
died, she no longer felt bound by the promise she had 
made him. 

I do not vouch for this story. It was told me as a 
true one ; but it resembles very closely a tale in an 
English periodical many years old. However, it is an 
illustration of my idea that lawyers are employed by 
spirits who have legal affairs to settle before they can 
forget the troubles of this world. 



i8 7 



CHAPTER 1 6. 

THE MEDIUMS OF UNCIVILIZED NATIONS. 

Under various names that which the modern Spirit- 
ualist calls " a medium" is to be found in nearly every 
savage nation upon the face of the globe. There are 
but few of these people who do not believe that man's 
soul is immortal, and who do not profess to believe 
that their departed friends still take an interest in the 
affairs of those they have left behind them. 

One of the greatest difficulties the missionaries have 
had in converting many of these people, lies in the im- 
possibility of making them willing to think that their 
souls will rest until the Judgment-day, and then depart 
for all eternity to Heaven or hell. Neither does the 
idea of purgatory meet their views. They insist upon 
the ability of the spirit to come and go at will. They 
usually accord it a residence much more delightful 
than this world can be, and are very ready to believe 
in Heaven, especially one of what someone calls " the 
jewelers' show-window sort " — all diamonds and rubies, 
and gold and pearls — but the doors of this place are 
always ajar ; they will not have the Freed Spirit locked 
in, even there. 

" Mus come,' said an African savage to a missionary, 
u mus see, fader, moder, wife, brudder, if lub." 

Surely, his soul must have comprehended the fact 



1 88 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

that, whatever our spirits keep or lose, their affections 
remain to them. If we love much, absence is unen- 
durable. 

THE KAFFIRS. 

As to what savages believe, it is often hard to be 
sure — they are very reticent ; but most of them have 
some notion of a creator. The Kaffirs call him by a 
word which signifies " Great Great. " They say that 
Great Great, having created the world and lived here 
until the green things grew, took a seed and split it, 
and from one half came man, from the other woman ; 
into them he breathed the immortal spirit, and gave 
them the world for their own. 

When the body dies, the soul goes down, and it be- 
comes its mission to advise its friends for their best good. 

If living folk forget lost friends, the spirits grieve 
and are apt to recall themselves to mind by some 
slight punishment. 

By way of reparation, the relatives sacrifice cattle to 
the dead. They make a feast — the living eat the meat. 
The spirits of the animals join those in the spirit 
herds, of which the ghosts are just as fond as they were 
of those they owned in life, and there is a family 
reconciliation. 

THE ASHANTEES. 

Ashantees believe in a creator and in hosts of evil 
spirits. Their belief as to the soul of a man is that it 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 1 89 

returns to a human body. They call the soul the " kra." 
It is a sort of spiritual Siamese twin — one half good, 
and the other half evil. When a little baby dies, its 
soul, they say, enters the form of the next child borne 
by its mother, who considers it the same individual and 
hails its return with joy. In fact, the strong point of 
their belief as to man's soul is eternal re-incarnation. 
Mediums are " controlled " by spirits which were never 
men or women, mostly for evil, but sometimes in order 
that they may make prophecies. 

THE DAHOMIANS. 

In Dahomey the mediums are called " Fetish-men." 
They are controlled as mediums are. A party of 
people appoint an hour for a seance — the fee is a silver 
dollar or its value. 

The Fetish-man goes into a trance ; his spirit visits 
the other world, and, on returning, he tells the news he 
has gathered. 

If any one is ill, it is supposed to be because his 
departed friends are calling him. On this, the Fetish- 
man is consulted, and sent to the spirit-world to give 
the spirits reasons why they should let him remain on 
earth awhile longer — making polite excuses, but signi- 
fying that his work here is not yet done. 

Sometimes they refuse to listen ; but if they accord 
him a longer life, the Fetish-man assures the suppliants 
that their friend will recover, and, besides his fee, has a 
present of value. 

The excuse sometimes is that the patient is not yet 



I90 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

rich or powerful enough, and it is considered a good 
one : for, as the people of Dahomey go into the next 
world, so they remain. A king is a king eternally, a 
servant a servant ; if one goes over poor, he can never 
be rich. 

Therefore, " we excuse him until he has (so many) 
cattle/' is a reply often reported by the Fetish-man as 
being sent by the very spirits who are most anxious to 
have their friends " come down " — curiously it is down y 
not up. 

THE AUSTRALIANS. 

The medium of the Australians is called a " Charm 
Man." 

Their spirit-home is up, for they always point to the 
sky. 

There seems to be a sort of limbo, in which, when a 
man first dies, he wanders about in utter darkness. At 
last he finds a pendent rope or cord, seizes it, and is 
pulled up to his future dwelling, where he becomes 
white. 

Therefore, spirits appear with white skins. There is 
but one word in the native language for ghost and 
European. 

When white men and women were first seen, they 
were hailed as the spirits of the departed, and were 
" recognized " just as good Spiritualists recognize their 
friends at the doors of materializing mediums' cabi- 
nets — no very close resemblance was expected. 

A Mrs. Thompson, a plain, Scotch widow, who ( I 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 191 

believe) was one of a party shipwrecked on Western 
Prince of Wales Island, fell under the notice of a cer- 
tain chief, who instantly flew to the conclusion that she 
was the spirit of his lost daughter, "GriGm," whom he 
had tenderly loved, and who had returned to him,, 
solidly materialized. He welcomed her with joy and 
took her home. 

Not understanding the Scottish tongue, he was not 
aware that she denied the fact, and insisted on being a 
good father to her. She was unutterably wretched, but 
he never knew it. 

Finally, she learned to talk a little, and the kind 
parent married her to what seemed to her a very 
frightful savage, but who was considered a most 
eligible match by Australians. 

However, the women were always afraid of her, and 
would warn their children not to vex "the ghost. " 

When, at last, she contrived to make her position 
known to some English sailors, and received the pro- 
tection of the captain and officers, many efforts were 
made to induce her to remain, and the old chief, who 
believed her his daughter, lamented her as he would 
have done were she dying. 

Nor was this a solitary instance where white people 
were taken to the hearts of Australians as the spirits of 
dead friends and relatives. 

Some departed souls are supposed to enter animals — 
the Charm Men know these at sight — and their lives are 
saved. 

The Australian has no name for God — but they 
speak of a First Man, whose name was " Adi." He 



I92 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

was alone on the earth with his wives, and, while fish- 
ing, was drowned. 

His wives witnessed this catastrophe, and afterward 
saw a great, black rock start up where he had gone 
down. Thereupon they flung themselves into the sea, 
and so committed suicide, and came up again, as he 
did, in the shape of rocks. So there stands great, black 
Adi, its back far above the water, and about it a circle 
of little rocks, called the Spile, or the wives, who, in this 
way, still attend their husband. 

Sometimes, through the Charm Men, the survivors 
of a family learn that the departed is unhappy. Peace 
can be secured to him, if one of their number will 
spend a dark night alone, lying upon his grave. The 
ordeal is terrible ; but some are found devoted and 
affectionate enough to offer themselves. During this 
time, the unhappy spirit is supposed to appear to him, 
and he is put to indescribable torture of mind and 
body ; but if he endures all bravely, not only does the 
spirit have peace, but he himself becomes endowed 
with occult powers, and is respected thereafter as a 
sorcerer. 

The Australians believe in a river-spirit, like the Ger- 
man Necken, in a wood-demon, with horns and saucer 
eyes, ycleped "Bunyip," and in a great bird called the 
" Marralya," who appears beside the bedsides of sick 
people and squeezes out their breath with its great 
claws, or even tears them to pieces with its beak. 
Within this bird dwells no spirit of its own ; but it is 
entered by those of witches who are enemies of the sick 
person. 



THE MAORIS. 193 

The Maoris of New Zealand speak of a great spirit, 
" Atna "; of a*bad spirit, " Wairua." 

They pray and offer sacrifices of flesh, and also sacri- 
fices of the fruits of the earth. 

They never opposed Christian missionaries, but wel- 
comed them from the first — mixing the faith to which 
they were supposed to be converted, with much that 
was foreign to it and shocking to the missionaries. 

When man's spirit departs, they say, it goes to 
" Reinga," which seems to be a sort of Heaven. They 
believe shooting-stars to be spirits on their way to 
Reinga. They seem to have no doubt that spirits can 
converse with and counsel their living friends, but this 
only in the presence of a medium, for whom their name 
is "Tohunga." He is usually clairaudient, and inter- 
prets what spirits say to the anxious friends who sit 
about him. 

They only hear a faint whistling, like a gentle breeze. 
Sometimes he sees a pale light, or the shadow of a 
form, and considers it the spirit ; but even to him it is 
always faint and vague. 

There is a sort of Maori Charon, who manages a 
canoe with sail and paddles, and takes the Free Spirit 
across the waters between life and death. Sometimes, 
mourning relatives provide the deceased with a boat of 
this sort, which they place upon his grave. It is too 
small for real navigation — a sort of model, in fact, but well 
provided with stores of food and water for the voyage. 

They believe in evil spirits, and hear their voices in 
the air, and are so much afraid of witches, that any old 
woman, who can make them believe that she is one, can 



194 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

have things all her own way. The witches are said to 
dig a hole in the ground at midnight, utter a spell, and 
invoke the spirit of the person she desires to injure, 
which appears like a flame, is cursed, and carries home 
the curse to the sleeping body. 

However, people pray for the sick — much as pious 
folk do in this country — addressing Atna, the Great 
Spirit, only. 

For a long time, the gigantic and grotesque figures 
on the coast were called idols ; but it is now known that 
they never worshipped them. 

THE FIJIANS. 

Priests are the mediums of the Fijians. As one ex- 
plained it to a white man, his state, when entranced, 
is this : 

" My own mind departs. When it is truly gone, and 
I, myself, know nothing, my God speaks within me/' 

To begin his seance, the priest anoints and adorns 
himself, and on the arrival of the person who wishes to 
consult him, sits with his back toward the large, white 
cloth, which is always suspended behind him on such 
occasions, and has near him a bowl of perfumed oil. 

The visitors enter, present the priest with certain 
offerings, amongst them a whale's tooth, and tell him 
their motive in consulting him. 

Having heard all they have to say, the priest takes 
the tooth into his hand and fixes his eyes upon it — all 
sit in a circle about him and are utterly silent, closely 
watching him. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. I95 

Soon he shivers, trembles, his face is distorted, the 
blood-vessels stand out like ropes, his heart is almost 
seen to beat. 

Then he grows pale and seems to shrivel — his expres- 
sion becomes that of a furious madman ; he weeps, per- 
spires profusely, and what he calls his "god" is 
supposed to have possession of him, and communica- 
tions begin. At last, a voice utters : 

"I depart." The priest throws himself on the 
ground, and his "god" returns to the world of spirits. 

Sometimes the priest holds his seance at the private 
house of an important person — the white cloth, how- 
ever, is always necessary. 

THE ABYSSINIANS. 

The Abyssinians are, many of them, supposed to be 
Christians. They pray and fast — particularly fast — but 
they believe in many things that their pastors and 
masters hold in abhorrence. 

Their greatest horror is a "Bouda," and their belief 
that one can transform any man into a dog, a donkey, 
or any beast of the field, keeps them in perpetual 
anxiety. 

He, himself, usually takes the shape of a hyena, and is 
then heard laughing in the forests. 

A medium, with them, is the wretched victim of sor- 
cery, who, for the time, speaks and moves at the bidding 
of the evil spirit put into his body, or frequently, her 
body. 

An Englishman, who, with a party of conscientious 



196 the freed spirit. 

companions, was witness to one of these supposed 
" obsessions " or " possessions/' has minutely described 
it : 

The medium was a girl. For days she had been 
moving listlessly about, complaining of her head — then 
she became entranced, and lay motionless. Her friends 
said that the Bouda had entered her, and watched her 
in sorrow and alarm. An English physician was 
^ allowed to do what he pleased to arouse her ; in vain. 
She lay motionless, and a voice seemed to proceed from 
her, without the use of her teeth, or tongue, or throat. 

At last, suspecting deception, the physician applied 
strong liquid ammonia to the girl's nostrils. It was a 
fluid unknown to any there ; but, though she had no 
experience of sal-volatile, the Abyssinian damsel never 
winced. Cold water, thrown upon her in a sudden 
douche, produced no gasp. 

The friends lamented and carefully guarded the door 
of the hut. 

" Soon," they said, " Bouda will make her try to go 
to the hyena. He will howl in a few moments." And, 
curiously enough, it was not long before the hideous, 
laughing cry of the creature resounded from the forest, 
where it had not been heard for days. 

The physician and his friends remained in the hut all 
night. 
p After awhile, the girl spoke gently and seemed in her 
right mind. She asked if she might go out and breathe 
the fresh air, saying that she was now quite well, and, 
arising, walked toward the door, like an animal, as we 
say, " on all fours." But her relatives, crying out that 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 197 

this was only the Bouda trying to get her outside of the 
hut by artifice, seized her gently and kindly, bound her 
hands and feet together, tied her up in such a fashion 
that it must have taken many moments to unbind 
the cords, laid her on a mat and covered her with 
something. 

Instantly she arose — every knot untied — and walked 
toward the door in the same fashion. 

It was no exhibition, nothing was to be gained by it ; 
but again and again the girl was bound, the Englishman 
assisting in securing the knots, and she regularly threw 
off the cords the moment she had been laid upon the 
mat again. 

This w r as repeated again and again, until a fearful 
howl filled the hut. The girl opened her eyes, swooned 
away, and the Bouda was said to have departed. 
Whereupon the relatives expressed their satisfaction in 
their sister's recovery. 

SPIRITUAL BELIEF OF THE ESQUIMAUX. 

Persons who have taken the trouble to converse with 
the Esquimaux as to their spiritual faith, have made 
many curious discoveries. 

They believe in a supreme being and a holy mother, 
in the immortality of the soul and two future states, one 
of reward and one of punishment. The latter is 
described as a place where snow falls perpetually and a 
storm of sleet never ceases. Through these, blinded 
and benumbed, the unhappy hunter pursues a seal 
which is merely a phantom and never can be caught. 



I98 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

He is hungry; he longs for his friends and his home: 
but can never eat, or rest, or be comforted. Could 
imagination create a more wretched hell? 

However, this is only for the very worst. Their 
crimes are so few that it is hard to think this frozen 
Hades very thickly populated. Esquimaux do not fight 
or commit murder, or even make war. Such social laws 
as they have are never infringed. They are honest to 
a degree. A knife is the most precious possession of 
an Esquimau, a sharp tool of any sort a temptation ; 
but anyone can drop such things anywhere and be 
sure of finding them just where he left them. The 
hunters of phantom seals, perhaps, have " made bad 
Karma"; have thought evil things, not done them. 

But the good Esquimau, when he dies, enjoys him- 
self. He can visit his friends at will, and finds in his 
spirit-home nearly the same pleasures he would have 
experienced here if there had been neither sickness or 
death — he is always young and happy. 

People have called the Esquimaux unfeeling, because 
they do not pay any regard to a dead body and leave 
people to die alone. 

This latter custom, however, arises from a belief that, 
at the moment of the spirit's departure, a band of 
immortal beings gather about him, and that mortals are 
in the way. Therefore, they build him a new hut, light 
a lamp, and leave him to angelic ministrations. 

As to the body, an Esquimau explained that in this 
fashion : " If my friend threw away the body, like old 
clothes not wanted, now he has new, why should I care 
for? The body is nothing." 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 199 

Yet, an Esquimau often sits by a grave, talking to 
spirits very earnestly. 

" Do they answer you ?" was asked of one who did 
this for a long while. 

" Yes, within me," said the Esquimau, tapping his 
breast softly — " not so " — and he touched his ears. 

Some Esquimaux also profess to see spirits. Usually 
not those of departed friends, but queer, tricky sprites, 
resembling Robin Goodfellow, who torment the maids 
and men, much as he did those of old England. These 
creatures, who are described as having very ugly faces 
— though, who can say what may seem ugly in the eyes 
of an Esquimau ? — are supposed to sit and grin at 
mortals in such hideous fashion that there is no ' 
bearing it. 

They put out the lamps by blowing at them, disturb the 
wet clothes in the " dry net," so that they dry unevenly, 
and jog the elbows of the women as they sit carving 
ivory, which is one of their favorite occupations, and in 
which they show great skill. Moreover, they make the 
babies cry, break the children's toys, and tangle the 
"cat's cradle," which is one of their games. 

A loud and peculiar shriek, made with the ringers in 
the mouth, is the only method of exorcising these 
household demons. 

A man will say to others : 

" Excuse me, but a demon is troubling me — permit 
me to howl." 

They believe, also, in sea spirits, who live beneath the 
water and keep "herds" of whales and walrus. 

In their clairvoyance, the clairvoyant in his trance 



200 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

visits the homes of powerful spirits and paints word- 
pictures of their residences as minute as Swedenborg's 
descriptions of his heavens. And they have their 
spirit-rappers. These are possessed by what they call a 
"Tornga," which is exactly what the medium of our 
country designates his " control.'' 

The " seance " is always a dark one. The assemblage 
is seated, silence is enjoined, and (as far as the matter 
can be decided by the sense of hearing) the medium 
begins to throw himself about, to dance and whirl in 
circles. Certainly he howls, gabbles, hisses and invokes 
the Tornga. 

Shortly, he sits down on the ground and is quiet ; he 
holds his breath, so that those who have carefully ex- 
amined him cannot detect the least respiration. While 
he lies thus, seemingly dead, loud slaps are heard, 
which announce the arrival of the Tornga. They are 
made on any solid body adapted to the purpose. Two 
slaps announce the arrival ; questions are answered by 
other slaps, as in table-rappings. 

At last, Tornga gives a final slap, to signify that he 
is going, gabbles, hisses and howls. His voice seems 
to die away in the distance, and the medium comes to 
life, with a howl, uttered without previous respiration. 

No Esquimau has ever attempted to " investigate," 
or to "grab." 



201 



CHAPTER 17. 

TESTIMONY FROM ALL QUARTERS. 

There are many people who feel it their mission to 
prove to the world at large, that all apparitions, omens, 
and occult experiences whatsoever, are simply caused 
by disturbances of the brain, defects of the eye and ear, 
and freaks of the imagination. 

Doubtless, many of these are so caused, and the 
knowledge of this fact is of use to the medical man, 
who generally needs all the help he can get in every 
direction. Also to nervous people, who are frightened 
when old furniture creaks, and take a rat in the sur- 
base for u a warning," and a dream caused by mince- 
pie and green-tea, swallowed at midnight, for a revela- 
tion from on high. I think, too, it is well to teach the 
maid who is afraid to go up-stairs in the dark, and the 
coachman who gives warning because the weather-vane 
on the barn needs oiling, and represents to his fancy a 
most wretched and unhappy ghost " groaning awful/' 
that superstition is sinful. But people who deny the 
fact to prove that they have fine minds are really 
hindering progress. 

The general dread of being thought superstitious is 
very much in the way of anything like Psychical re- 
search in respectable circles. 

Thousands of stories of dreams, "warnings," clair- 



202 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

voyant-trances and the appearance of dead friends, are 
hidden away by respectable families, as if they were 
skeletons which w T ould disgrace them if they peeped 
out of their closets. 

Especially is this so in the Northern States of 
America. 

English folk have no objection to being known to 
have, at their " place in the country," a white lady, or 
a mysterious figure in a cloak, or a chariot that drives 
to the gate and vanishes. In fact, they are apt to tell 
of it, for it is aristocratic. No German castle is with- 
out its spectre, no church without its legends, and it is 
the learned professor or the man of science who is 
most apt to take an interest in anything relating to 
"the debatable land." 

Here, the wise are too anxious to be thought so. 
Those who follow my leader, wait for them to jump. 
It is so at the North, at all events. Most Southerners 
are more emotional and romantic, and ready to accept 
the fact that tokens of affectionate remembrance are 
sometimes sent to mortals from those who have gone 
before. Besides, people who have always been sur- 
rounded by negroes, must learn that much which is 
usually treated with scorn as absurd, is based on facts 
as strange and inexplicable as they are positive. 

The slaves, descendants of savages, knew the power of 
a thought to harm — well for us, if we should recognize it. 
Most of us believe that we can treasure hate for an indi- 
vidual, if we conceal it within our bosoms and do not 
speak of it. If we use the object of our hate kindly, w r e 
really feel as though we merited the smiles of Heaven. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 203 

It is hard to comprehend that an evil thought goes 
forth and does its work, and, moreover, like the boom- 
erang, is apt to return at last, to the hand that sent it. 

And in this let those take comfort who have made 
mistakes and done the very thing they should not have 
done, with good intentions, moved by love or friend- 
ship, or general feelings of humanity. The mistake 
will have its effect here — we must suffer for mistakes — 
but the good thought, the pure intention, will also ful- 
fil its appointed task. 

Having wandered away from my sheep, I return to 
them. 

There are proper opinions to hold, for instance, in 
regard to the appearance of spirits — they must be 
spoken of as " hallucinations " by persons of good 
sense. The editor of a magazine of position must 
keep up its credit for being ably directed. 

Therefore, when he mentions anything remarkable 
in the occult line, he must head it to suit the tastes of 
the general reader. 

The general reader of a popular paper is supposed to 
be unable to comprehend anything beyond the reach 
of a child's intelligence. The general reader of the 
magazine is held to be respectable and conservative, 
and above all, to hold the regular stock opinion on all 
subjects. Therefore, one of the cleverest magazines in 
the country heads a column with these words : 

" Hallucinations of the senses," and explains, care- 
fully, that he knows that they are nothing more, and 
that he does not presume to imagine for a moment 
that any reader on his subscription list would enter- 



204 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

tain any other opinion, and then goes on to tell the fol- 
lowing well-authenticated ghost stories : 

" On the night of November 17, 1890, Mr. S. Walker 
Anderson, of Tickhill, Bawtry, Yorkshire, then in Aus- 
tralia, woke up in bed and distinctly saw the figure of 
his aunt, Mrs. Pickard, standing, with her arms down, 
near the foot of the bed, and dressed in an ordinary- 
black dress, such as he had seen her wear many times. 
She looked older and stouter than when he had last 
seen her, three years before, and she moved her lips as 
if to say ' goodby,' and then vanished by degrees. 
There was a lamp in the room and he was wide awake. 
He had not been anxious about her; but, on seeing the 
vision, began to fear that she was dead, and took a note 
of the time, which was about midnight. The mail 
brought news of her death at 1 1:00 A. M., November 17. 

" The Rev. Matthew Frost, of Bowers Gifford, Essex, 
states that on the first Thursday of April, 1887, while 
sitting at tea, with his back to the window, and talking 
to his wife, he plainly heard a rap on the window, and, 
looking around, saw his grandmother tapping on the 
glass, and said to his wife: 'Why, there's my grand- 
mother/ and went to the door, and even round the house, 
for he felt sure his grandmother was about, but could see 
no one. On the following Saturday he received news 
that his grandmother, who lived in Yorkshire, died 
about half an hour before he heard the raps. 

" Miss P- , mistress in a high school, was walking 

to the school on April 6, 1887, after eight o'clock in 
the morning, and distinctly saw her father. Three 
days before, she had a presentiment of coming trouble 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 205 

and could not stay alone. Two telegrams to the 
school announced her father's illness and death on 
April 6." 

Now, if the editor really believed that these were 
hallucinations, and no more, why should he feel called 
upon to pay them any attention ? If Mr. Anderson, 

the Rev. Matthew Frost and Miss P , were, for a 

few moments, feverish or delirious, or had some trouble 
with their eyes — that was not a matter to interest the 
world at large, nor would he so have regarded it. 

Like all other human beings, that editor seized the 
tiny bit of testimony that death is not annihilation, 
w T ith avidity ; but, being wise in his generation, he 
touched it up with a bit of practical good-sense before 
he sent it to the compositor. 

Mr. Jones, of " Jones & Jingles," would, perhaps, have 
stopped his subscription, had the article been headed 
as it might have been, but " hallucinations of the 
senses " made it quite the correct thing. While he 
read it, he felt a little more certain that he should, one 
day, see his dear, old mother, who died when he was 
only a poor clerk, and that she would be, in a measure, 
like herself. Wings and a harp create a feeling of re- 
moteness ; but he said — " curious hallucination of a 
clergyman, my dear " — before he read it to his wife, 
and the good lady so accepted it. Really, after all, it 
is only a matter of ceremony. If only the magazines 
will all publish everybody's hallucinations, and make it a 
genteel and sensible thing to have hallucinations — 
" hallucination " will, in time, appear in the dictionaries 
denned thus — " a spirit — a visitant from the other world. " 



206 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

And it is not a step, but a very long stride, that has 
been taken when such things are printed under any 
heading in periodicals intended for the perusal of the 
respectable and wealthy. 

There are notable exceptions to the usual alarmed 
reticence. 

The whole nation knows that Abraham Lincoln was 
a devout believer in signs and omens, and had several 
visions during his lifetime, most of which have been men- 
tioned in print. 

He never said " keep that to yourself," in telling 
them, or " I would not have the public know that for 
the world." 

Honest to the very soul, he had no more hesitation 
in admitting his belief on occult subjects than on 
national ones. 

What he saw he spoke of as the simplest peasant 
might. It never entered his mind that some might con- 
sider him foolish or a lunatic because of his supernatural 
stories — nor did any one ever draw such a conclusion. 
That was impossible. 

Prophetic dreams he certainly had — one, the night 
before his own assassination. 

In Carpenter's " Six Months at the White House," 
we find this : " At the Cabinet meeting, held the morn- 
ing of the assassination, General Grant was present, and, 
during a lull in the conversation, the President turned 
to him and asked if he had heard from General Sheri- 
dan. General Grant replied that he had not, but was 
in hourly expectation of doing so. 

"'You will hear very soon/ said the President, 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 2QJ 

1 and the news will be important. I had a dream last 
night — and, ever since the war began, I have inevitably 
had the same dream before any important military 
event occurred. It is in your line, too, Mr. Welles — the 
dream was that I saw a ship sailing very rapidly/ ' 

The President had also visions that prophesied his 
death. 

Many great men of the past are said to have had the 
moment of their death foretold. Xenophon says that 
Cyrus dreamed of the exact moment of his death. 
Socrates dreamed that a white lady came to him and 
quoted a passage from Homer, which predicted his 
death. Judas Maccabeus thought that the spirit of the 
bishop of Milan appeared in a certain spot, which he 
saw in his dream, and, pointing to the ground, said : 
"Here and in this place." And on that very spot, the 
following morning, his enemy gained a victory over 
him. Caesar's wife, Calphurnia, had a dream which fore- 
told his death. Aristotle says that Eudemius thus saw 
the death of Alexander. Caracalla foretold his own 
assassination, which he saw T in a dream. For genera- 
tions the members of an English family named " Wot- 
ten " were celebrated for dreaming of their own deaths, 
of which they foretold the date and the circumstances. 
Sir Thomas Wotten also described a burglary committed 
in Oxford, of which he dreamed as he slept in Kent, 
and named the burglars. 

Before George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was 
murdered, stabbed to the heart by a dagger in the 
hands of John Felton, a lieutenant in the army, who 
fancied himself unjustly treated in regard to promotion, 



208 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

the air seemed full of portents — the duke being on his 
way to Portsmouth, whence he was about to set sail, com- 
manding an expedition for the relief of the Protestants at 
La Rochelle. An old Highland seer, being requested by 
a Scottish nobleman to foretell Villiers' future, which 
seemed to promise well, fell into the usual state of trance, 
and, waking from it, said : " The man will come to 
nought. I see him with a dagger plunged in his heart." 

Parker, who had been an officer of the wardrobe to 
the duke's father, thrice declared that his old patron 
had come to him in the night, and told him to warn his 
son that he had secret enemies, and, on the third time, 
had drawn a dagger from his bosom and said : " This 
will end my son's life — and do you, my good Parker, 
prepare for death, for it is near you." 

He told the duke of this, and he left home in a 
pensive and apprehensive mood in consequence. How- 
ever, no idea whence the danger was to be expected was 
given, or it might have been avoided. A little later, 
the duke's sister, the Countess of Denbigh, dreamed 
that she was riding with him in a coach, when she heard 
shouts of joy in the street. 

" Why do they huzza?" she asked. 

" Because the duke is dying," was the answer. She 
looked at him, saw that it was so, and, uttering a shriek, 
awoke. 

Much agitated, she began to tell her dream to one of 
her ladies, and had just finished, when the news of his 
assassination was brought to her. I believe he was 
stabbed while alighting from his coach. Parker also 
died almost immediately. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 209 

Great faith was placed in prophetic dreams by wise 
men of the past. Cicero tells of two friends who 
traveled together ; but, being, one night, unable to find 
accommodation in one inn, the one who stayed where 
they first called dreamed that his friend came to him 
and besought his aid, saying that his landlord was mur- 
dering him. He awoke, rejoiced that it was nothing 
but a dream, and slept again. This time he thought he 
saw his friend once more, and that he reproached him 
for not coming to his aid, and cried, in piteous accents : 
" It is now too late, for he has slain me." On this, the 
dreamer became convinced that the other man was 
actually dead, and, rising in consternation, sought the 
house of the man who had entertained him, and found 
that he had actually murdered his guest for what money 
he had about him. 

Fancy a writer mentioning all these instances and 
many more, and then setting coolly to work to prove 
that there was really nothing in them, by quoting from 
Rasselas : " All power of fancy over reason is a degree 
of insanity/' and declaring that dreams are nothing but 
a species of delirium. 

Very easy to say ; but how did this explain the vision 
of the governor who, one night, saw in his room what 
appeared to be no other than the celebrated Harvey, 
who was then in Dover, but about to leave it. Startled 
by the unexpected call, his excellency begged to know 
what brought him there. 

" I am not exactly Harvey," said the presence, " but 
I am his spirit. He is at his house, in bed. He is 
determined to set sail for Calais to-morrow ; but the 



2IO THE FREED SPIRIT. 

packet that he intends to take will be lost. As we have 
still much work to do in this world, I come to ask you 
to detain him in Dover for four and twenty hours." 

The governor pondered the matter over the rest of 
the night, and the next morning sent an order com- 
manding Harvey to remain in Dover for a day or two. 
Naturally, that gentleman's astonishment was very 
great ; but, as a storm arose, and the packet was lost, 
with most of her passengers, his wrath was turned to 
gratitude, and, subsequently the governor told him why 
he detained him. But for the disaster he would have 
kept his reasons to himself. 

However, dreams are seldom of such real practical 
value. Usually, they do not point out the way of 
escaping danger, but only prophesy that it is at hand. 

Most people, whose names we know, who have done 
great things in this world, think a good deal of 
what is to follow the present state. What interests 
them is not the sort of thing we " cannot take with 
us," but just the very reverse — what may go with the 
soul if our souls go anywhere, be part of our identity if 
we retain it. 



211 



CHAPTER 18. 

THE BELIEF OF AGASSIZ IN THE ETERNAL CONTINU- 
ANCE OF INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY. 

Agassiz, despite his opposition to Spiritualism, 
believed that individual personality was retained in the 
future existence. Death, he said, might alter his mode 
of activity, but he should still be active, and that 
probably his soul would take delight in observing the 
souls of animals, as he now did their bodies. 

One says of him : " His theory that animals have souls 
was derived from his intense knowledge of their nature." 

Those who knew him say that he could talk to all so- 
called dumb creatures — that they hailed him with 
friendly cries and movements of the head, and loved 
him better than those who were always with them after 
they had seen him but once. 

IMMANUEL KANT ON THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 

Immanuel Kant laughed bitterly at all ghost-seers, 
and considered Swedenborg only fit for an insane 
asylum. Speaking on the subject, he says : 

" I do not know that there are spirits. What is 
more, I do not know what the word spirit means." Yet, 
elsewhere, he writes : " But, probably, never lived a 
righteous soul that could bear the thought that death 



212 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

is the end of all, and whose noble disposition did not 
rise to a hope of the future. Therefore, it seems more 
proper for human nature and for the purity of morals to 
base the expectation of a future world on the emotions 
of a good soul than, inversely, to base the goodness of 
the soul on the hope of another world. " 

LORD BYRON ON THE WHITE LADY OF COLALTO. 

Fancy Lord Byron believing in a spectre — yet, he 
writes to Mr. Murray : 

" The White Lady of Avernel is not quite so good 
as a real, well-authenticated Dona Bianca, White Lady 
of Colalto, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a 
man, a huntsman, now alive, who saw her. Hoppner 
could tell you all about her — Rose, also, perhaps. 

" I, myself, have no doubt of the fact, historical or 
spectral. 

"She always appeared on particular occasions, before 
the deaths in the family, etc., etc. 

" I heard Madame Benzoni say that she knew a gentle- 
man who had seen her cross his room at Colalto Castle. 

" Hoppner saw and spoke to the huntsman who met 
her at the chase and never hunted afterward. She was 
a girl attendant, who, one day, dressing the hair of the 
Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile 
upon her husband, in the glass. 

" The Countess had her shut up in the wall of the 
Castle, like Constance de Beverly — ever after she 
haunted them and all the Colaltos. She is described as 
very beautiful and fair. It is well authenticated." 



MOZART'S BELIEF IN OMENS. 213 

The well-known story of Mozart's last Requiem is 
only occult in the very widest sense : for it is stated that 
the mysterious person who ordered the composition 
was afterward known to be a servant of Count Wal- 
segg — one Leutgeb ; but the positive certainty that 
Mozart felt that he was writing his own Requiem is 
none the less remarkable. 

Another curious story was told by his young sister- 
in-law, who believed in omens. In the early morning, 
as she was preparing breakfast, a candle still remained 
burning. To quote her own words — " fixing my eyes 
steadily on the flame, I said — c I should like to know 
how Mozart is ' — and, suddenly, as if in answer, the 
light went out as completely as if it had never been 
burning ; not a spark was to be seen lingering on the 
thick wick, and I am quite positive that there was not 
the slightest current of air." 

On this, she felt that an unfavorable answer had been 
given her, and hastened to Mozart's house, to find him 
dying. 

MR. FRITH'S DREAM OF DICKENS. 

It is stated on excellent authority, that the artist 
Frith, on rising on the morning of June 9th, 1870, said 
— " I dreamed last night that Charles Dickens was dead." 
A few moments later, news was brought him of the sad 
and sudden event. 

VICTOR HUGO. 

. Besides feeling that he knew the soul to be immortal, 
and hoping for greater opportunities after .death than 



214 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

he ever had before, Victor Hugo went so far as to be- 
lieve that a table spelled out words by raps without 
the assistance of the mind of any human being present. 
One or two seances, which he attended, made him de- 
clare that a medium was by no means certain to be a 
trickster — though he felt that there was something in 
all the mysteries of Spiritualism which made them un- 
wholesome for men who wished to keep their own 
minds in good working order. 

abercrombie's opinion. 

Abercrombie says : " Our speculations respecting 
the immateriality of the rational human soul have no 
influence on our belief of its immortality. This mo- 
mentous truth rests on a species of evidence altogether 
different, which addresses itself to the moral constitu- 
tion of man. It is found in those principles of his na- 
ture by which he feels upon his spirit the awe of God, 
and looks forward to the future with anxiety or with 
hope — by which he knows to distinguish truth from 
falsehood and evil from good, and has forced upon him 
the conviction that he is a moral and responsible being. 
This is the power of conscience, that monitor within 
which raises its voice in the breast of every man, a wit- 
ness for his Creator. He who resigns himself to its 
guidance, and he who repels its warnings, are both 
compelled to acknowledge its power, and, whether the 
good man rejoices in the prospect of immortality, or 
the victim of remorse withers beneath an influence un- 
seen by human eye, and shrinks from the anticipation 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 21 5 

of a reckoning to come, each has forced upon him a 
conviction, such as argument never gave, that the be- 
ing which is essentially himself is distinct from any 
function of the body, and will survive in undiminished 
vigor when the body has fallen into decay. 

" When, indeed, we take into the inquiry the high 
principles of moral obligation, and the moral govern- 
ment of the deity, this important truth is altogether 'in- 
dependent of all our feeble speculations on the essence 
of mind. For, though we were to suppose, with the 
materialist, that the rational soul of man is a mere 
chymical combination, which, by the dissolution of its 
elements, is dissipated to the four winds of Heaven, 
where is the improbability that the power which framed 
the wondrous compound may collect these elements 
again and combine them anew, for the great purposes 
of his moral administration ? In our speculations on 
such a momentous subject we are too apt to be influ- 
enced by our perceptions of the powers and proper- 
ties of physical things ; but there is a point where this 
principle must be abandoned, and where the soundest 
philosophy requires that we take along with us a full 
recognizance of the power of God. 

" There is thus, in the consciousness of every man, a 
deep impression of continued existence. The casuist 
may reason against it till he bewilder himself in his 
own sophistries, but a voice within gives the lie to his 
vain speculations, and pleads with authority for a life 
which is to come. The sincere and humble inquirer 
cherishes the impression, while he seeks for further 
light on a subject so momentous ; and he thus receives, 



2l6 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

with absolute conviction, the truth which beams upon 
him from the revelation of God — that the mysterious 
part of his being, which thinks, and wills, and reasons, 
shall, indeed, survive the wreck of its mortal tenement, 
and is destined for immortality." 

A BEAUTIFUL HOPE OF THE THOSEOPHIST. 

Theosophists, while they believe in the intercommu- 
nication of the spirit of the living man with that of dis- 
embodied personalities, say that it is not the spirits of 
the dead who come to earth, but the spirits of the liv- 
ing that go to meet the pure spiritual souls in their 
higher state. That, in this way, those who really at- 
tract each other spiritually, can and do communicate, 
generally in a dream — which is not all a dream — which 
in some sensitively organized people becomes a trance. 

Madame Blavatsky says — " although there is hardly 
a human being who does not hold free intercourse, 
during the sleep of his body, with those whom it has 
loved and lost, yet, on account of the positiveness and 
non-receptivity of its physical envelope and brain, no 
recollection, or only a very dim, fleeting remembrance, 
lingers in the memory of the person once awake." 

Theosophists believe, too, that, for a very brief period, 
the real ego may remain on earth, and has occasionally 
communicated with those to whom it intensely desired 
to speak — then it becomes unconscious and awakes in 
Devachan. 

For ten or fifteen centuries, the spirit, worn out with 
the trials of life, is permitted to rest in that heavenly 
place, whence all woe is banished, where the best and 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 2\*J 

most blissful part of life is repeated, without the shadows 
which memory and anxiety for the future cast upon us 
here. And though they believe that a soul is not made 
for each body, but that our souls return to earth many 
times, they declare that spiritual holy love is immortal, 
and that those who have loved each other with true 
affection will incarnate again in the same family group ; 
for, to quote H. P. B. again, " Pure, divine love is not 
merely the blossom of the human heart, but has its 
roots in eternity." 

HERBERT SPENCER. 

Herbert Spencer says : " Whatever doctrine or 
opinion has received, through a long succession of cen- 
turies, the common assent of mankind may be properly 
set dow r n as being, if not absolutely true in its usually 
received form, yet founded on truth, and having, at 
least, a great undeniable verity that underlies it. 

" If, however, there be conflicting details as to any 
doctrine, varying in form according to the sect or the 
nation that entertains it, then the test is to be received 
as affirming the grand underlying truth, but not as 
proving any of the conflicting varieties of investment 
in which particular sects or nations may have chosen to 
clothe it." 

Thus of the world's belief in the reality of another 
life and in the doctrine of future reward and punish- 
ment. In some form or other, such a faith has existed 
in every age and among almost every people. 

The Fathers of the Church regarded dreams as revela- 
tions from God, and the tales they tell are very won- 



2l8 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

derful. They also believed that some dreams were 
from Satan. 

St. Augustine declares that some very practical and 
sensible advice as to worldly matters has been given in 
these devils' dreams, but probably there was an evil 
intention at the bottom of this seeming amiability. 

Both this saint and St. Chrysostom could distinguish 
between devils' dreams and God-given dreams. 

Bishop Ken, pious man, wrote on the subject. He 
believed that dreams were from God himself — a revela- 
tion of divine mercy. 

Here is a quotation from him : 

4 'I, waking, called my dream to mind, 
Which, to instruct me, Heaven designed. 1 ' 

The Divina Comedia was partially inspired by a 
dream. 

A bishop of Gloucester gives evidence that one Mrs. 
Greenwood dreamed of a murder, all its incidents, and 
the names of those concerned — not in one dream, but 
five. The people were strangers to her. Knowing 
nothing but what she saw in her dreams, she acted as 
detective in the case, each dream indicating some 
special point in the case, and showing where one of the 
several murderers might be found. Full confession 
was made, and her dreams were true in every particular. 

EXTRACTS FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS. 
ON A HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SUNDAY, JULY 9TH. 

" God bless and keep us ! For there is something 
more awful in happiness than in sorrow — the latter 
being earthly and finite, the former composed of the 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 219 

substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still 
embodied may well tremble at it." 

ON A BRIGHT DAY. 

" Oh, perfect day ! Oh, beautiful world ! Oh, good 
God ! And such a day is the promise of a blissful 
eternity. 

" Our Creator would never have made such weather, 
and given us the deep heart to enjoy it, above and 
beyond all thought, if he had not meant us to be 
immortal It opens the gates of Heaven and gives us 
glimpses far inward." 

In another place, Hawthorne mentions sitting with 
his friends, Emerson and Margaret Fuller, telling 
ghost-stories until midnight, which proved that such 
tales were not utterly contemptible in the eyes of any 
of the three. 



220 



CHAPTER 19. 

THE HAUNTED HEARTH. 

For the story which follows, I am indebted to one 
who was well acquainted with the lady to whom the 
occult manifestations occurred, and is personally aware 
that all happened as it is told. 

It is now many years since an elderly lady, who had 

recently become a resident of , hired of its owner 

an old-fashioned house which had not been occupied for 
some time, and, having apportioned certain rooms to 
the various members of her family, reserved for herself 
one which had a wide fire-place and a low mantel-piece. 
In this she kept a good fire all the time, and was in the 
habit of toasting herself thoroughly at it just before 
retiring. 

Now, there are in this world — let who will deny 
it — certain people who are subject to psychical impres- 
sions — this lady was one. No sooner had she settled 
herself in her room than she became aware that, when- 
ever she stood upon the hearth, before the fire, leaning 
upon the low, wooden mantel-piece, as was her wont, a 
sense of horror fell upon her — not a presentiment, but 
a sort of shadow of the past. Something seemed to 
whisper to her : " There has been a tragedy enacted 
here — just here — upon this hearth — in the light of such 
a fire as this." 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 221 

She became, after awhile, perfectly certain that this 
was so. Daily, the impression grew stronger, and at 
last, in the solemn silence of a winter midnight, a 
picture grew before her eyes. 

Just how or whence these pictures come, or even how 
they are seen, mortal lips have no power to say, but the 
picture was there, and it was this : 

The fire blazed high upon the andirons ; there was no 
light in the room but that which it gave, glowing red 
against the black chimney-back, flinging vermil touches 
upon the walls, golden glints upon the ceiling, touch- 
ing the dusky drapery of the bed and curtain here and 
there. 

Before the fire, upon the rug, sat a man and woman, 
locked in each other's arms — lovers, whose lips met. 
Suddenly, a third figure joined the group — the scene 
became one of hideous conflict and confusion. Then 
the two lovers lay pallid, blood-stained — dead upon the 
hearth — and the third figure was gone. A moment the 
ghastly forms of his victims remained, then the vision 
faded utterly. 

Having had previous experiences, the lady who had 
witnessed all this felt certain that such a tragedy as had 
been presented to her had really been enacted in that 
house ; but, not being acquainted with her neighbors, 
spoke to no one on the subject. 

As to the old house, she knew nothing of its history, 
having never seen it before the day on which she 
resolved to live there. 

After the night of the vision, I believe, she had no 
more unusual experiences. 



222 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

A few months later, having occasion to hire a new 
servant, she was told of an old colored woman who was 
desirous of finding a place, and sent for her. 

Old Aunt Polly, as I will call her, presented herself 
very shortly. She wanted work and was satisfied 
with the offer made her, but evidently there was some- 
thing on her mind. She rolled her head about, looked 
down at the floor and up at the ceiling, and, finally, 
made her speech. It was to the effect that, much as 
she desired to make the engagement, she could not 
come to the house unless she received assurance that 
she should never be sent into a certain room. " Not to 
make de fire, nor sweep de floor, nor make up de bed, 
nor nufifin, missus," she went on. " I cyant come, no 
ways, ef I is to be sent into dat yar room — wid de big 
fire-place, and de great harf, an de low ceilin' ; " and she 
went on to describe the room in which the mistress of 
the mansion had seen the vision of the murder. " Per- 
haps that could be managed," the lady told her ; but she 
must give a good reason for the request. 

" Oh, yas'm," Polly replied, " dar is good reasons — 
murder was done in dat yar room, and dar is haants 
dar, sartin shore. 

" Folks has seen 'em, everybody knows de room is 
haanted." Then she proceeded to tell her tale : 

Twenty years before, a very unhappy couple had in- 
habited that house. They quarreled incessantly, and, 
moreover, the husband was jealous. At first only 
vaguely, but at last suspicion deepened to certainty, and 
he became positive that, during his frequent absences 
from home, his wife entertained a lover. Whether he 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 223 

had received private information, or employed any spy, 
will never be known ; but, suddenly, he seemed to 
abandon his suspicions, to grow trustful and affection- 
ate, and, finally, made arrangements for a long journey — 
told his wife that he would be away many weeks — and 
bade her a tender farewell. 

This, however, was only a plan to entrap her. He 
had so arranged matters that he could enter the house 
at any time, and he remained where he could watch her 
movements. 

The traitress was completely deceived, and her lover 
entered the house that very night as soon as the 
shadows were deep enough to hide him from the eyes 
of the neighbors. 

A little later, the injured master of the house opened 
the door of his desecrated home, and noiselessly made 
his way to that low-ceiled room with the wide fire-place, 
which I have described. 

Secure in her freedom from observation, the adul- 
teress had not even locked the door. There were no 
servants, no children in the house, no one but herself 
and the partner of her unholy love, and these two sat 
on the great rug before the hearth, folded in each 
other's arms, when the outraged husband suddenly stood 
beside them. He slew them both, but not without a 
fierce struggle with the man (who lived long enough to 
tell the truth), and then stalked out of the house, and 
went, whither no one knew — he was never seen, never 
heard of again. 

" Sence dat yar night," Aunt Polly said, " dey walks ; 
nobody kin lib in dat yar room ; dey skeers em so." 



224 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

" Was the woman a little, slender creature, with a 
thin face and big owl-eyes ?" the lady asked. 

" Yes'm," replied Aunt Polly ; " she did look jes dat 
way, sartin shore." 

The lady then described the two men whom she had 
seen in her vision, and Aunt Polly cried out : 

" Why, you must have knowed 'em ! Dat is jes like 
dey all looked. " 

But Mrs. had only recently arrived in the place, 

and had never before heard of any of these people, or 
even that a tragedy had occurred beneath the roof of 
the old house. 

This is certainly one of the most singular of psychi- 
cal stories, and it was told me by a person who would 
not utter falsehood. 

SLEEPING-CAR DREAMS. 

In the columns of the Herald, I find the tale that 
follows, reported by police officers and those who 
legally investigated the case : 

A married woman, who resided in the city of San 
Francisco, having reason to complain of her husband, 
and desiring a divorce from him, instituted proceedings 
against him, and sent for her sister, who lived, I be- 
lieve, in Ohio, asking her to come to her and give evi- 
dence which would assist her to gain her case. 

The sister agreed to do so, and left her home for 
that purpose. 

Before starting upon her journey, she took the pre- 
caution to conceal a sum of money (three thousand 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 22 5 

dollars, I believe) about her person. She did this by- 
placing it in a small, linen bag, and stitching the bag 
neatly into the bosom of her corset, where its presence 
would never be suspected by strangers. 

Having cash enough in her purse for all her needs, 
she was not obliged to undo her work, and as she saw, 
every night, that the little bag was where she had 
placed it, she had no anxiety as to the safety of the 
contents. 

She remained in San Francisco until the case was 
settled and her sister obtained her divorce, and then 
left for home, never having examined the bag of 
money, which she had not spoken of to any one ; but, 
while reposing in the sleeping-car, on the first night of 
her journey, she dreamed a dream. 

In it her sister stole away her corset, ripped out the 
bag, took out a great portion of the money it con- 
tained, restored the remainder to its old place, and 
stitched the bag to the garment once more. 

Awaking, she dismissed the whole thing as an absurd 
fancy, and went to sleep again ; but, on arising in the 
morning, she felt that she would be easier after 
counting the money once more, and, having done so, 
found, to her horror, that the sum of which she had 
dreamed had actually been abstracted from the original 
quantity. 

Her mind was made up at once. At the next sta- 
tion she alighted and returned to San Francisco, 
appeared before her sister without warning, and ac- 
cused her of the theft. 

The indignant denial that injured innocence might 



226 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

have uttered was her reply ; but she had her sister 
arrested and searched — the stolen money was found 
stitched into her dress. Confession followed, and the 
whole sum was restored. 

The story ends there, a tragic little tale enough — if 
there had ever been any sisterly love between the two 
women — but yet another prophetic dream to add to the 
list already collected. 

Another sleeping-car dream is that of a Mr. Frost, 
who dreamed of the particulars of an accident which 
happened several hours later. The cause of the 
trouble, the spot where it occurred, and the faces of the 
two men who were injured, had all been seen by him, 
though he attached no importance to his dream at the 
time. 

Railroad employees frequently have presentiments 
of accidents. Engineers, more than once, have pointed 
out the spots where they were to meet their death, and 
where they did eventually meet it — and, on the day 
itself, have, without reason, declared that their time 
had come. 

These premonitions might readily be explained by 
the fact that the lives of these men are continually in 
danger, and that any unusual depression will remind 
them of it ; but they are, nevertheless, too well attested 
to be entirely set aside. 

Many years have passed since the steamer Westfield, 
on her Sunday morning trip to Staten Island, burst 
her boiler just as she was leaving New York. It was a 
frightful affair, in which a number of people were 
scalded to death, many of them prominent persons. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 22/ 

I have heard a gentleman tell how he started that 
morning, in due season, to reach the fated boat — 
how, do what he might, delays occurred. He could 
not find his hat, his coat, his gloves, his shoes seemed 
to play hide and seek with him, his door seemed locked 
on the outside — then burst open and gave him a fall, 
scattering the contents of a portmanteau he carried, in 
all directions. On the steps of his house a neighbor 
buttonholed him, the car-conductors passed him at 
full speed, regardless of his signals. When he, finally, 
entered a car, he left it without taking his portman- 
teau, and was obliged to go to the office to claim his 
property, which had been carried thither. 

Though usually light on his feet and not apt to 
blunder, he stumbled frequently and, once, fell down 
flat. His watch-chain caught in the fringe of a lady's 
mantle, and he was obliged to wait while she daintily 
picked away the silk with a hair-pin, in order not to 
injure it. 

It seemed, he said, that a demon was tormenting 
him — but, with all this, he reached the wharf but an in- 
stant too late, and the angry oath which he was about 
to utter, had not left his lips, when the explosion oc- 
curred, and changed it to thanksgiving for his safety. 

It then became his fixed conviction that his guardian- 
angel had been trying to save his life, while he resisted 
him. Why his particularly ? one may ask, remember- 
ing all the innocent people who suffered and died, and 
those who mourned them, who were not less deserving 
of angelic protection. Still, his mishaps and detentions 
were exceptional. 



228 



CHAPTER 20. 

MYSTERY STORIES. 

The most astonishing of all the mysterious stories I 
have ever heard, are three in which living people van- 
ish before the eyes of those who are gazing upon 
them, two to be seen no more. 

All seem well-authenticated, though they pass the 
boundaries of human comprehension. 

One is of an athlete who was competing in a foot- 
race with others, surrounded by a crowd of witnesses. 
One instant he was seen by all, the next he was gone, 
to the astonishment of the spectators, especially of the 
man behind him, who was looking at him as he van- 
ished. 

There was nothing but a clear track, barricaded as 
usual, and the crowd beyond it. All eyes were intent 
on the probable winner, when another man was seen to 
lead the race. Nothing was ever again known of the 
hero of this story. 

Another case was that of a man who vanished at the 
door of his neighbor's house, in an American country- 
place. 

Witnesses were called upon to testify to the fact, as 
there was a suspicion of foul play. People who had no 
interest in the matter declared that it was an actual 
case of vanishing from sight. 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 229 

The third story was of a gentleman, who was appar- 
ently attacked by delirium, and begged his friends to 
lock him into a room and stay with him. They did so. 
Their eyes never left him. They believed him to be 
about to be attacked by serious illness ; yet, suddenly, 
he was no longer with them. No door had been opened, 
no window, yet he was gone. 

Three years afterward, they found him at the door of 
the same house — his own home. He was unconscious 
of having left it, remembered nothing of the interval, 
could not believe the time had passed, and was horrified 
by w r hat they told him. Nor was he ever able to recall 
any event between the hour when he begged for pro- 
tection from some invisible power which seemed to try 
to force him from his friends, until that when he heard 
them greet and question him. Nothing unusual ever 
occurred to him again. 

THE SON RESTORED TO HIS MOTHER. 

There is a French tale that caps these — told by a 
man of position, who dwelt, for a time, in the home of 
a poor peasant woman, his purpose being, I believe, to 
study the people of a certain place, of which he desired 
to write. Certainly, he had a strange experience. 

While he dwelt there, the oldest son of the family — 
a fine fellow, on whom they all relied for support, and 
who was very kind and lovable — died suddenly. The 
grief of the relatives was terrible. Their guest grieved 
with them, and was present at the funeral and burial. 

The mother and sisters bewailed the young man 



230 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

wildly, and cried out that they could not live without 
him , they actually prayed that he might " return " — a 
mad prayer enough, but, according to their literary 
guest, it was granted. One day, the family found their 
lost brother in his bed, as of old. 

They seemed to feel no great astonishment — their 
delight, however, was past bounds. Neighbors came in 
and welcomed him. The priest confessed that a 
miracle had occurred. He, himself, said that he had 
been to Heaven, but that he had been permitted to 
return because of the longing he felt to do so, and the 
prayers of his kindred. He was forbidden to describe 
what he had heard and seen, but told them that he was 
to be allowed to stay a certain number of years, until 
his mother should no longer need him — ten, I believe. 

No one in the whole place doubted his identity, the 
distinguished guest least of all. 

The story goes on to say that the young peasant lived 
exactly the length of time that he had mentioned, 
and passed away, following his mother, who died in his 
arms, very quickly. The closest particulars are given 
in the diary which used to be part of the earlier 
biographies of the author, who attests the facts. 

The narrator of this story ends with words to this 
effect : " These facts have convinced me of what I 
never thought I should believe — that man possesses an 
immortal soul. ,, 

No doubt, friends and admirers of the author feared 
that his great reputation would suffer, and for this reason 
have suppressed the tale. About this time, too, it is 
said, he was attacked with brain-fever and threat- 



THE FREED SPIRIT. 23 1 

ened with insanity ; and, as I conclude that this was the 
explanation of the whole thing, I do not use the well- 
known name of the dead author, who has a reputation 
as a great philosopher. 

It is a pretty and tender story, however, with all that 
gentle beneficence about it which is the chief character- 
istic of French fairy tales. One might fancy Le Bon 
Dieu being thus merciful to those who appealed to him. 
I think every torn heart almost hopes for such sign of 
Heaven's pity when it is first crushed beneath a weight 
of woe ; and there are stories like unto it in the New 
Testament, which all good Christians believe — this one, 
for instance : 

ST. LUKE, CHAPTER VII. 

12. Now, when Jesus came nigh to the gate of the 
city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the 
only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much 
people of the city was with her. 

13. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion 
on her, and said unto her, " Weep not." 

14. And He came and touched the bier, and they 
that bare the dead man stood still, and Jesus said : 
" Young man, I say unto thee, arise." 

15. And he that was dead sat up and began to 
speak, and Jesus delivered him to his mother. And 
there came a fear on all, and they glorified God. 

And that other story of Lazarus, the brother of Mary 
and Martha, who had lain in the grave four days, 
when Jesus raised him. 



232 THE FREED SPIRIT. 

Assuredly, if God ever took heed of the special needs 
and griefs of individuals, he may do so still. 

It seems to you, and it seems to me, impossible that 
the young peasant should have been raised from the 
dead ; but, after all, what do we know ? 

may have been mad, and in his madness imagined 

the exquisite story ; but he printed the signature of the 
mayor of the place and of several important residents, 
attached to words something like this : 

" To the best of our knowledge and belief, having 
personally known the dead man, who lived again 
amongst us after having been laid in his grave, this 
story is perfectly true ; and God, in his mercy, has per- 
formed a great miracle. " 

I quote from memory. 



